In the ‘Moderation’ thread, William J Murray tried to make a case for ideological bias among evolutionary scientists by referencing a 2006 Gil Dodgen post, in which numerous authors emphasise the lack of teleology within the evolutionary process. I thought this might merit its own OP.
I disagree that authors are showing a metaphysical bias by arguing against teleology. I wrote
Evolutionary processes, conventionally defined (ie, variations and their changes in frequency due to differential survival and reproduction), do not have goals. If there IS an entity with goals that is also directing, that’s as may be, but the processes of evolution carry on regardless when it isn’t. It is important to erase the notion of teleology from a student’s mind in respect of evolutionary mechanisms of adaptation, and most of those quotes appear to have that aim. Organisms don’t, on the best evidence available, direct their own evolution.
To which WJM made the somewhat surprising rejoinder: “how do you know this”? Of course the simple answer is that I qualified my statement ‘on the best evidence available’ – I didn’t claim to know it. But there is a broader question. Is there any sense in which evolutionary processes could, even in principle, be teleological? I’d say not. You have a disparate collection of competing entities. Regardless whether there is a supervening entity doing some directing, the process of differential survival/reproduction/migration cannot itself have goals.
An example of evolution in action: the Chemostat.
The operator of a chemostat has a goal – often, to create a pure cell line. The process by which this is achieved is by simultaneous addition and removal of medium, which causes purification by random sampling, which is evolution (a form of genetic drift). How can that process have a goal? There is no collusion between the cells in the original medium to vote one to be the sole ancestor of all survivors. How do I know this? That would be a pretty daft question. I think it would be incumbent on the proponent to rule it in, rather than for me to rule it out.
The exact areas of agreement and disagreement between Murray and myself remain to be precisely determined. I don’t disagree with everything he says, but in many cases of agreement, we still differ over the implications of those agreements.
Specifically, Murray’s call for “methodological pragmatism” seems right to me if it means that we should not try and reduce all explanations to a single kind, and especially right if we should not try and reduce all explanations to those of fundamental physics. But it sometimes seems as if he wants to avoid explanations altogether and merely describe what we experience, and that seems quite badly mistaken. Rather, I think that accurate and precise descriptions of what we experience are the explanandum of empirical explanations (what need to be explained).
For the ancients and medievals, ontology did come before epistemology. The idea that you have to get the epistemology right first, before doing anything else, seems to begin with Descartes. And that might well be a mistake. (Certainly Cartesian epistemology is a mistake, as is the picture of the mind on which it rests.) But I am reluctant to think that any philosophical question has ultimate priority over all the others. Instead, I think that we need to think of all of them as intimately bound up and mutually implying each other (as, I think, Plato understood).
It begs the question to assume the star came about via a process, if the definition of “process” you put above is used.
You can pick: either processes need not have ends, or we don’t know that the star came about via a process. But you can’t have it your way without giving up science in favor of Spinozistic web-spinning.
Mung, to BruceS:
The definition of ‘process’ that you quoted is teleological, but that’s just one definition. By other definitions, a process needn’t be teleological at all.
The process of star formation is not teleological by definition. That’s something you need to demonstrate.
You’re not one of those “dirt-worshippers” I hear about over at UD are you?
1. You draw no life lessons. From anywhere. Period.
2. You draw life lessons from the dead or otherwise inanimate.
3. You draw life lessons from non DNA-based life forms.
Do tell.
Allan didn’t actually assert that there is in fact a process of star formation. I assumed he was asking what was in effect a rhetorical question. I’ll take that up with him. I’ll have to ask him what he meant.
Thanks for pointing that out.
But do you dispute that according to the definition of process I provided that a process [so defined] is by definition teleological?
And contrary to Allan’s claim, I did not have to redefine process.
That’s something you need to demonstrate.
Up thread someone posted a link to an SEP article on teleology and biology, but I think a better place to start is this article:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/
I hope those of you actually interested in teleology will take the time to read it.
I’ve done a bit of quote mining to perhaps garner interest and perhaps address some of the subjects that have already come up or are likely to come up.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#FinCauDef
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/#ExpPriFinCau
So no, I am not just making this stuff up. 🙂
Mung,
Allan is right.
You wrote:
That’s not correct. It would be true only if every process matched a teleological definition such as the one you provided.
Cats are mammals, but not all mammals are cats. Teleological processes are processes, but not all processes are teleological processes. Your logic is broken.
I haven’t read it yet but I shall strive to do so. To me the question is whether this “naturalized teleology” extends outside the biological realm.
I haven’t found anything yet in my reading that would lead an Aristotelian to appeal to anything other than Nature to explain teleology. So I am interested in understanding why science must reject teleology.
It would seem more and more that there is no good argument for the rejection of teleology. I include the OP in that.
keiths, it is your attempted analogy to cats and mammals that is broken.
That’s something you need to demonstrate.
That seems right to me.
Allan is right about what?
Allan claimed I would need to redefine the term “process” in order to show that a process was, by definition, teleological.
Allan: Not without redefining ‘process’ to make it true.
You agreed that according to the definition I provided (not one of my own making) that process, so defined, is teleological.
keiths: The definition of ‘process’ that you quoted is teleological
How did I redefine process? I merely provided a quote from an online dictionary and a link to the quote. Did I redefine it by quoting a definition from a dictionary?
How did I redefine process? What process did I use?
Allan is right about what?
I was at first resistant to this transition from a technical term to a more familiar word, but what are the definitions of purpose? Synonyms are end and goal. Which bring us right back to teleology. But it would also seem that purpose is closely associated with intent and all the baggage that comes with that.
If we are gong to reject teleology, we should at least be clear about what it is we are rejecting.
You quoted one of several definitions in that dictionary. Some of the other definitions do not make a process necessarily teleological.
Most scientists would prefer something closer to definition 2 (same dictionary reference).
As I’ve said, it doesn’t really matter how “process” is defined as long as we keep that def in mind when we use it. If you like Mung’s def. one, you simply can’t use the expression “the process by which stars emerged” without knowing something we actually don’t know. You’ll probably have to coin “brocess” or something.
Neil, how did I redefine process?
Or is it in fact the case that I did not have to redefine the term at all? Is it in fact the case that the original claim was simply false? How does quoting a definition, from a dictionary, constitute a re-definition of a term?
Do. Tell.
I agree, I think. 🙂
The complaints seem to consist of assertions that the other definitions of process are non-teleological.
All I ask is, under which of the alternative definitions of “process” does “the process of star formation” fall?
Mammals. Cats. etc.
I have a personal difficulty with a process that is not in fact a process. But then, don’t we all?
By selectively excluding all of the possible meanings, other than the one that you wanted.
Mung: How did I redefine process?
Neil: By selectively excluding all of the possible meanings, other than the one that you wanted.
So I redefined process by not redefining process.
That’s your final answer?
…all natural (as opposed to accidental) happenings occur either invariably or for the most part, which makes them, for Aristotle, susceptible of teleological, final-cause explanations.
– The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle p. 114
…processes being the natural unfoldings of events according to a regular pattern…
– The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle p. 118
Neil, under which non teleological definition of process does “the process of star formation” fall?
Mung,
Let me walk you through it.
‘Process’ already has an accepted set of definitions, both teleological and non-teleological.
Your claim is that
That claim only becomes true if you redefine ‘process’ to exclude the non-teleological.
Allan was right:
Allan is a smart guy, Mung. Why not learn from him instead of ineptly trying to out-argue him?
If we see science as building predictive models of what we observe in nature, we could say that the ontological bias equates to the rules of the models. Certain things are allowed, other things are not.
Without a priori rules, science would turn into a game of Mornington Crescent , and as in that game, there would never be a useful outcome.
When we build a model of star formation we are allowed to use the rules of physics, chemistry and astronomy as we know them. I presume we at least all agree on that? What other rules would the IDers suggest we could introduce in our model, and why? Specifically, how would we build teleology into our model?
fG
Mung, let’s quote the complete dictionary entrance for ‘process’ that you offered upthread:
1. a systematic series of actions directed to some end:
to devise a process for homogenizing milk.
2. a continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a definite manner: the process of decay.
3.Law.
the summons, mandate, or writ by which a defendant or thing is brought before court for litigation.
the whole course of the proceedings in an action at law.
4. Photography. photomechanical or photoengraving methods collectively.
5. Biology, Anatomy. a natural outgrowth, projection, or appendage:
a process of a bone.
6. the action of going forward or on.
7. the condition of being carried on.
There are 7 meanings here, all of them valid definitions of ‘process’ and all of them different. Only context can tell us which of these is meant when someone uses the word ‘process’. You cannot simply assume that meaning 1 is always the correct one for every context. When it comes to star formation, it could be either 1 or 2. When having a discussion about’ the process of star formation’ it would be useful to make it clear up front which meaning each of the participants are using in that context. Just like it would help to be clear on what meaning of ‘star’ you are talking about: a celestial body, or Judy Garland.
fG
Kantian Naturalist,
I’d love to know if either of you can point to a scientist who is not a methodological pragmatist. To ‘call for’ something implies that the field is currently doing it all wrong.
It seems like a better term for what I mean by “methodological materialist”.
But most of these fancy terms end up generating more light than heat. The simple fact is that scientific methodology makes predictions and tests them. If you can make a predictive model for a putative phenomenon, then you can test the model, and it doesn’t matter whether the model is of a particle or a behaviour, or an animate being, biological or otherwise.
What is wrong with ID isn’t the idea of postulating a designer, or even a Designer, but that it doesn’t make predictive models.
And if you want to describe a process as “teleological” than you are implicitly invoking a being capable of purpose.
So let’s hear about the being, and the process by which it conceives and executes its purpose.
oops missed a page.
Mung,
And nor is it what I said. Where did the word “all” come from? Oh yeah, you.
Mung,
So what is directing star formation (besides gravity)? What’s the ‘end’ (besides something that was not there at the beginning)?
Teleology includes an express notion of ‘purpose’, conventionally defined. “Process” can but does not have to. You are free to have your private or restrictive definition of ‘process’ or ‘teleology’, take your pick. Then, and only then, are processes teleological ‘by definition’.
This is where E-prime comes in useful.
A drainage basin is a systematic series of actions directed at some end, but it isn’t “teleological”, just deterministic.
To be teleological there has to be a director. Or at least some system that can be sensibly thought of as making choices with some end in view rather than some different end. Things-with-brains are good at this, but they also need sensory organs that can sense what is coming down the pike, and thus anticipate at least the near future.
And if evolvability itself evolves (and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t – why mutation rates shouldn’t optimise, for instance), then it’s possible that just as (in my view) teleology-capable brain-bearing organisms have evolved, that at population level, teleological processes have evolved too.
But it wouldn’t imply a Designer (sometimes Gregory’s caps are useful, sometimes less so, but the cap is useful here), merely a design process that itself is the product of evolution.
Mung,
Ha. The gotcha. Are you mocking the persona of a UD-simpleton***, or actually adopting one? Hard to tell. But your list is not exhaustive.
*** eta – which is not intended to be inclusive of all UD posters, he said hastily …
Mung,
I think you need to internalise the point of the OP. It is not a rejection of teleology, in the sense of ruling that evolution is definitively not directed from without, it is a rejection of the common Creationist argument that, if a textbook says something that amounts to “organisms are not really trying to maximise fitness”, that this is an ideological statement intended to exclude the teleology of the first kind.
Mung,
You’ll have to ask all these people.
But it’s probably one of these (simpler Merriam-Webster):
: a series of actions that produce something or that lead to a particular result
: a series of changes that happen naturally
medical : something that sticks out of something else
Elizabeth,
Though of course a drainage basin can have a purpose. And that’s often the hard distinction. Intention can direct processes-that-happen-anyway to achieve an end. Such as Artificial Selection. ID (in some flavours) effectively argues that it is all Artificial Selection, or Directed Mutation, or both. But there must be some possibility that the non-directed flavours of those … uh … processes have some influence. That part of the whole (which may or may not actually be the whole) is what evolutionary science concerns itself with.
The irony here for the IDist, which undercuts Mung’s philosophy-lite (dictionary heavy) appeals to teleology, is that IDT is a non-process theory. IDists don’t study the process(es) of designing. Why? Because that would mean they would have to study the Designer doing the designing too, which they simply cannot do because of IDT’s implicationist apologetics (disguised as ‘strictly scientific’).
Has anyone here read A.N. Whitehead’s Process and Reality, which would help to clarify purposeful ‘processes’ (though he only makes one use of ‘teleological processes’, which he contrasts with ‘efficient processes’)?
The major question related to the OP is whether or not ‘evolution’ (also multi-definitional) is an inherently ‘teleological’ term or not. Allan Miller, from the single field of biology, says no, according to disciplinary convention. If other fields say, yes, however, which I argue that they do, then that would require an adjustment to people’s perceptions of how the actual evolution happens, i.e. the teleological process of evolution (with goal, direction, plan, guidance, purpose, etc.). E.g. can there possibly be a ‘final cause’ to cosmic (or universal) evolution the way Pierre Teilhard de Chardin envisioned? Is it only the ‘Darwinian’ variety of ‘evolution’ that is non-teleological or are *all* varieties of evolution non-teleological?
This is *not* a pro-ID site: http://www.strangenotions.com/can-darwinism-survive-without-teleology/
This is why restricting the discussion to ONLY natural sciences is such a pointless (pun intended) exercise. Which ‘director’ could there possibly be in *any* natural science?
Traditionally, the fields that openly, forthrightly and clearly deal with purpose, teleology and ‘directors’ are the fields of social sciences and humanities (SSH). To exclude them from the conversation, however, is an on-going intentional strategy by both IDists and their anti-IDist opponents. Does it hinder fruitful communication? I would say yes it does. In this case, I include philosophy and theology/worldview in SSH, so to require that the conversation about ‘teleology’ is only a ‘scientific’ is to show fundamental confusion.
But Mung is going to go ahead with his ‘teleological process in strictly natural science’ approach because that’s what the DI has trained him to do, i.e. because that is DI policy. And since several of you have already agreed with basic dictionaries that *some* definitions of ‘process’ are teleological, Mung has already ‘won’ the argument with a few skeptics here.
ROTFL. By this logic, not all processes are ‘evolutionary’, either. So, what are those ‘non-evolutionary processes’? Allan? Anyone else?
Of course, it all depends on what you mean by teleology.
Dictionaries are going to be of limited use for how the term is used in science. The issues are too complex to be captured by a dictionary definition.
Instead, tt is a question for philosophy of science.
The authors of the paper KN mentioned are proposing a definition of teleology that is consistent with natural science. They also claim it only seems to apply to biological systems.
But they point out repeatedly that the definition makes sure effects don’t precede causes.
Explanations that demand that demand teleology allow for that would not be scientific.
Well, of course “what is causation” is another one of those questions continually raised in philosophy of science which has no agreed answer. For an example on causation in physics, see the latest Aeon.
But the proposed answers to that question are for another thread.
Yet despite the fact that there is no agreed ontology for causation, science continues successfully.
Which is one reason that I say to KN and you that science does not require settled ontology. Only commitments to a certain set of standards for explanations, none of which is absolute, and which are balanced and applied by individual scientific integrity, the community of scientists, and by assessing the success of experiments and research programs based on these explanations.
Of course, I agree, since I lean towards a naturalized philosophy. But there is a still a continuum of questions, and to me “what is teleology?” is to on the philosophy side of that continuum.
I’m not sure about the phrase “metaphysical presuppositions”. If it means certain expected characteristics for explanations, such as causes don’t precede effects, or that the constraints of physics are respected, then I agree that science makes them.
But if it means hard commitments to certain conclusions in metaphysics or ontology, then I am not so sure. After all, very little is settled in philosophy, but science proceeds regardless (this not meant as a criticism of philosophy).
In any event, it seems to me that your work has moved closer to the conversations between science and philosophy and further from conversations just between philosophers (I’m thinking of your book, which was about conversations between Lewis, Sellars’s, Brandom, McDowell, Dreyfus, with Merleau-Ponty lurking in the background).
If so, it’s good news for me, since it makes your suggested papers much more accessible to me. I enjoyed the Massio and Bich paper, for example,
Gregory,
It’s no good chastising Mung for going the dictionary path and then doing much the same. However narrowly or widely one casts the net of legitimately-defined ‘evolutionary’ process, the OP is about the biological one. I am not attempting to stifle broader discussion, but to prevent a multiple-tangent spinoff. Again I invite you to start an OP where your area of interest can be more appropriately thrashed out. I’ve renamed mine accordingly.
Gregory:
I read Process and Reality nearly 40 years ago, and have a copy. It’s a world unto itself. Consulting it to clarify the definition of “process” is rather like consulting Synergetics (R. Buckminster Fuller) to clarify the definition of “triangle.”
Allan Miller said:
EL said:
Gee, where were you guys when I was getting tarred and feathered for advocating a definition-of-scientific-process shift from the problematic, ontology-laden “methodological materialism” to the epistemology-restricted “methodological pragmatism” aspect of scientific investigation?
Out of interest, is being tarred and feathered here better or worse then being ignored at UD?
I’m impressed with anybody who can get through that book. I’ve struggled with his supposedly easier stuff, like Concept of Nature, myself. Even Whitehead’s former collaborator, Russell, didn’t take much time with Whitehead once the latter got into his process stuff. Didn’t like dealing with “jellymen,” Russell said.
KN said:
Now, if I had said this, I’d be skewered for it. Most “materialist” scientists would probably say that science doesn’t answer (strong>why; it only answers how (but even that is incorrect).
Well I don’t know that the last part is true, but all science does now is “make believe” that it has provided explanations, when in fact all science can do is provide – at best – predictive descriptions of behaviors. There is no explanation for those behaviors. They’re just the way things happen to behave. We map those behaviors; we can say that gravity causes a trajectory change in a rock passing by through space; we can describe it as an attractive force or as mass depressing space-time; but there is no explanation for how such an attraction attracts, or how such a depression affects the trajectory. Those are just descriptions of what we observe occurring.
These descriptions are then reified as forces, laws, and causes, as if we have explained how (much less “why”) they occur. The materialist/naturalist then characterizes those causes as being “natural” or “material”, and the theist may describe those causes as divinely ordered; but those are just bald, metaphysical assertions as far as science in any practical sense is concerned. We don’t know why these interactive operational regularities/capacities/values are what they are; we don’t know how or why they do what they do.
Ontology (materialism,naturalism, theism, animism) characterizes these reified descriptions into kinds of “causes” and “explanations” and generates a narrative heuristic that is used to “operationalize” scientific investigations and interpretations of data accordingly.
It becomes a problem when the ontology becomes entrenched ideological bias to the point that empirical evidence is ignored or dismissed because it defies/contradicts the expectations of the narrative. It’s also a problem when this ideological commitment insists that all scientific descriptions must conform to its particular, current narrative.
Which, IMO, is represented in particular in the animosty towards intelligent design. ID can be a perfectly good kind of description, but it defies the current materialist/naturalist narrative in science. IDists wish to use a certain language, set of terms and sets of phrases in order to proceed with their descriptions and at least some of them are perfectly useful.
For example, it’s perfectly good to use ID terminology and phraseology in biology – scientists have been doing so for hundreds of years; but when IDists started using the same terminology (design, purpose, machines, code, etc.) albeit under a different ontological perspective, the materialists/naturalists objected and then irrationally started trying to police their own terminology to eradicate that terminology which might also be used by theists.
Those characterizations are perfectly good, but the materialists/naturalists insist such characterizations are not “real” – a reflection of their ontological commitments which has nothing whatsoever to do with the usefulness of those terms/descriptions.
The devil is in the details. This is from your linked post:
“Personally successful” experiments would not be scientific without being universally applicable/repeatable.
We’ve also been to the races before about the need to respect the constraints imposed on science by consensus physics, like conservation of energy, and the impact of such constraints on substance dualism as being considered scientific.
I thought I’d unearth that for old times sakes. But from my end I’ll let it go at that.
No, it’s a reflection of the evidence. That you can’t see this is simply because of your ontological commitments.
I recall the experience as my struggling to understand his idiosyncratic terminology and viewpoint for several chapters – then “click,” I got it, and the book became easier going. I don’t recall if I read the whole thing.
When I look at the first response, I see:
Is that an example of being “tarred and feathered”?
It looks to me as if you were criticized for bad arguments rather than for the “methodological pragmatism” suggestion.