Over at Marginal Revolution, they’re quoting Jagdish Bhagwati:
“Once, Mrs Joan Robinson, my radical teacher at Cambridge University, and Professor Gus Ranis of Yale University, a ‘neo-liberal’ economist, were observed agreeing with each other that Korea had been a great success.
The paradox was resolved when it turned out that Mrs Robinson was talking about North Korea and Professor Ranis about South Korea!
(emphasis added)
Although “Mrs Joan Robinson” was indeed so called in 1956 (when she was teaching Bhagwati), by 1965, she was going by the name of “Professor Joan Robinson”. Gustav Ranis was made a full professor in 1964, according to his CV. So either this conversation took place in the second half of 1964 (or early in 1965), or Bhagwati is making a mistake that is, frankly, all too common when people discuss female academics. Val Dusek points out that Margaret Mead was a frequent victim of this accidental rudeness too.
Update. A number of our commenters appear to be making variants of the same joke about Joan Robinson being stupid for calling North Korea a success. Ahem.
“Like all the postwar Communist states, the DPRK undertook massive state investment in heavy industry, state infrastructure and military strength, neglecting the production of consumer goods. By paying the collectivized peasants low state-controlled prices for their product, and using the surplus thus extracted to pay for industrial development, the state carried out a series of three-year plans, which brought industry’s share of the economy from 47% in 1946 to 70% in 1959, depite the intervening devastation of the Korean War. There were huge increases in electricity production, steel production and machine building. The large output of tractors and other agricultural machinery achieved a great increase in agricultural productivity.
As a result of these revolutionary changes, there is no doubt that the population was better fed and, at least in urban areas, better housed than they had been before the war, and also better than were most people in the South in this period. Even hostile observers agree that standards of living rose rapidly in the DPRK in the later 1950s and into the 1960s, certainly more rapidly than in the South, where there had been no land reform and little industrial development. There was, however, a chronic shortage of consumer goods, and the urban population lived under a system of extreme labor discipline and constant demands for greater productivity.
In other words, between the Korean War and the oil crisis of the 1970s, the North Korean economy was not doing at all badly and it was entirely arguable that it was outperforming South Korea. (Professor) Joan Robinson retired in the early 1970s. Btw, Bhagwati explicitly did not make this mistake; his whole point in the original anecdote was to point out that subsequent events had shown that South Korean state-organised export promoting capitalism was a better system than North Korean state socialism.
Update update It’s just struck me that since JR was the wife of Professor Sir Austin Robinson, there’s probably a case to be made that at the very least, Bhagwati ought to have called her “Lady Joan Robinson”.
{ 77 comments }
Nick Simmonds 09.29.04 at 9:04 pm
Female acawho? But, if a woman is off professing, who is making dinner for her husband?
Kieran Healy 09.29.04 at 9:16 pm
“G.E.M Anscombe”:http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0105/opinion/dolan.html was also saddled as “Miss Anscombe” for too many. But the best (or worst) example was when “Dorothy Hodgkin”:http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/hodgkin.html, then Wolfson Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, won the Nobel Prize in 1964 and the Observer wrote a profile describing her as an “affable-looking housewife.”
Steve 09.29.04 at 9:39 pm
Hmm.
The most significant thing about this article is the fact that the woman professor was referred to as Mrs. rather than Professor? It wasn’t the fact that she thought North Korea was a great success? Liberals say the darndest things!
Karen Munro 09.29.04 at 9:51 pm
Yikes. I have nothing on any of these estimable scholars, but I was recently bemused to note that in correspondence from a department head asking me to act as an external assessor for a peer’s promotion, I was addressed as “Ms.” while she was referred to as “Professor.” (We hold the same rank.)
Alex Singleton 09.29.04 at 10:16 pm
Like Steve, I think the really weird thing was her belief of North Korea’s success. I am reminded of Thomas Sowell’s comment: “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
bull 09.29.04 at 10:28 pm
Are you sure Dr. Evil went to medical school? To me he has always seemed like a PhD economist.
dave heasman 09.29.04 at 10:38 pm
“Liberals say the darndest things!”
I don’t think that Joan Robinson was a liberal. Does anyone?
Tom Runnacles 09.29.04 at 10:56 pm
Kieran,
So far as Oxford in the ‘nineties was concerned, It certainly seemd as if Elizabeth Anscombe had been pretty much pickled in aspic as ‘Miss Anscombe’. I certainly seldom heard the lady in question referred to using any other moniker.
Could easily be one of those ‘tweedier-than-thou’ locutions which gets passed down the generations from don to wannabe-don, and it seems particularly obtuse given that, according to the lovely obit you linked to, ‘her last intentional act was kissing Peter Geach’.
mg 09.29.04 at 11:10 pm
Frankly, I don’t think it’s “accidental rudeness”. It is a deliberate diminution of a person’s authority by emphasizing a woman’s marital status over her degrees in a culture that places a high value on credentials.
P.S. I think it’s bizarre that Professor Robinson thought that North Korea was/is a great success.
eudoxis 09.29.04 at 11:25 pm
Val Dusek’s (professor) critique of sexual dimorphism is a bit outdated. There’s been a considerable amount of recent research that supports the constitutional camp. I agree with Barbara Ehrenreich in ascribing an unscientific basis for the oppositional view.
Although Mead’s time was one in which far fewer women were successful academicians, at least some the scorn she received had to do with her body of work.
Walt Pohl 09.29.04 at 11:27 pm
Is this liberal-bashing day or something? Thinking that North Korea is a success is not a liberal position. You would know that if you read something other than Thomas Sowell.
John Quiggin 09.29.04 at 11:30 pm
Of course, it might be argued that the problem lies in the fact that we give ourselves special titles in the first place, rather than in the fact that women are sometimes not accorded the same title as men.
Not that I’m offering to give mine up, at least until everyone else does.
Dubious 09.29.04 at 11:53 pm
Number 2 is clearly an MBA (practical but small-minded schemes for controlling the world) and Dr. Evil is clearly an economist (grandiose, theoretically plausible schemes for controlling the world).
But what does that make Frau? Operations Research?
dsquared 09.30.04 at 12:14 am
For f’s sake, people. Joan Robinson was clearly having this conversation in the 1960s, not last week!
Giles 09.30.04 at 1:04 am
Actually I think that this is a pretty paranoid reading– the point is that Joan Robinson is a universally well known economist whereas Gus Ranis isn’t. The “professor†epithet is then necessary to define to the less knowleagable reader that he was an academically qualified economist while the epithet would be spurious with Joan Robinson. So it merely establishes that this is a sort of argument between equals.
Its just the same with most economists’ – people tend to refer to say Jagdish Bhagwati or Paul Krugman or if they want to ram a point “Mr Krugman†“ Mr Bhagwati†or just plain “Krugman†“Bhagwati “ without the “prof†title since its pretty much spurious.
Giles 09.30.04 at 1:04 am
Actually I think that this is a pretty paranoid reading– the point is that Joan Robinson is a universally well known economist whereas Gus Ranis isn’t. The “professor†epithet is then necessary to define to the less knowleagable reader that he was an academically qualified economist while the epithet would be spurious with Joan Robinson. So it merely establishes that this is a sort of argument between equals.
Its just the same with most economists’ – people tend to refer to say Jagdish Bhagwati or Paul Krugman or if they want to ram a point “Mr Krugman†“ Mr Bhagwati†or just plain “Krugman†“Bhagwati “ without the “prof†title since its pretty much spurious.
Daniel Nolan 09.30.04 at 1:10 am
There might be a misunderstanding here that has nothing to do with the role of women in academia. In Britain, the Antipodes, and some other places, people don’t get called “professor” until they get made.. well, professor. On the other hand, academics in the US are called “professor” as soon as they make assistant professor – they don’t have to wait until full professor. So Bhagwati would have been using the correct title if the date of the conversation was anytime after Ranis became an assistant professor. (Assuming it’s okay to refer to people in the past by the title they had then rather than at the time of the utterance, but I’m at least fine with that.)
Nick Simmonds 09.30.04 at 1:26 am
Wow. I’m astonished at just how many ways can be found to justify callous misogyny.
Brett Bellmore 09.30.04 at 2:01 am
One should never be accidentally rude to people who think North Korea a sucess. It should be calculated and deliberate rudeness.
vik 09.30.04 at 2:05 am
please no one say they believed the val dusek article was credible… there are so many flaws in argumentation and evidence in it that it more resembles the protocols of the elders of zion than it does any real scientific critique…also i believe Ms. Mead requested ppl address her as that, thereby avoiding the situation where strangers like us could project our political correctness on her…
dsquared 09.30.04 at 2:22 am
there are so many flaws in argumentation and evidence in it that it more resembles the protocols of the elders of zion than it does any real scientific critique
No it doesn’t, and I see that you have decided to resort to something close to Godwin’s Law rather than argue against it. It is in fact an excellent essay, which provides quite detailed assessments of a number of the shonky tactics used by the people it names and shames.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 2:33 am
btw, the reason that I take slanders on the Dusek essay so seriously is that its conclusion is so close to my own views on the subject:
The notion that human beings have evolved from other animals and are a part of biological nature is tremendously important. It is unfortunate and misleading that the evolutionary psychologists make it appear that a commitment to evolution and to the importance of natural selection necessitates a commitment to pan-selectionism, genic selection and the “selfish gene.” We have seen how Wilson and now Dennett attempt to identify their opponents with anti-evolutionism. Even Barbara Ehrenreich dubs her opponents the “New Creationists.” The split between selfish gene evolutionary psychology and cultural constructionism in anthropology can only prolong the delay in the development of a genuinely evolutionary view of humanity. “Evolutionary psychology” by preempting the field of evolutionary accounts of human nature and potential helps to prevent a non-reductionist biosocial account of humans.
This is the crucial issue; the “evolutionary psychology” crowd have consistently backed the wrong horse in terms of their evolutionary theory and have been fucking rude about people and disciplines that they know less than damn-all about. And have thus poisoned the well for more or less any sensible attempt to think about what comparisons between human and non-human animals’ ethology might be able to tell us about psychology or sociology.
Peter 09.30.04 at 5:37 am
I’m with you, Vik. As any scientist in this field knows (my particular perspective is molecular-biological), there’s plenty about sociobiology/EP that’s open to intelligent criticism, but Val Dusek’s essay demonstrates very little, opting instead for ad hominem attacks and frequent detours into fashionable nonsense (buy the book and earn Kieran a nickel). Furthermore, while I hold no brief for the EPers, Dsquared’s complaint about them being “fucking rude” is good for a hearty laugh and an unavoidable allusion to the relative blackness of kitchen vessels.
Laszlo Panaflex 09.30.04 at 5:38 am
I’ll take professors who insist on being called Doctor or God or whatever for 500, Alex…
Best two profs I ever had were called Rob and Jack. They were too busy doing a damn good job to worry about titles.
Profs with ego issues posture and preen, and attending their classes tends to be a big waste of time. When a PhD tells you to address them as Doctor or Professor, the best thing to do is not address them at all.
Matt MCGrattan 09.30.04 at 7:07 am
“So far as Oxford in the ‘nineties was concerned, It certainly seemd as if Elizabeth Anscombe had been pretty much pickled in aspic as ‘Miss Anscombe’. I certainly seldom heard the lady in question referred to using any other moniker.
Could easily be one of those ‘tweedier-than-thou’ locutions which gets passed down the generations from don to wannabe-don”
I can’t speak for Anscombe in particular but for a lot of Oxford philosophers it’s accurate to refer to them as Mr or Mrs or Ms. There’s nothing disrespectful about it.
Historically a lot of philosophers here didn’t do a doctorate instead the 2 year B.Phil was the usual post-graduate qualification. So they weren’t Dr X they were Mr (or Ms) X.
Also, UK universities don’t refer to full-time permanent members of staff as Professor. Instead there may only be one or two Professors in a department — even a philosophy department as numerically huge as Oxford’s — and some of the best-known or ‘important’ members of a department may not be a Professor.
Derek Parfit, for example, is Mr not Dr or Professor.
If you check the faculty list there is still a moderate number of people on it referred to as Mr (or Mrs, or Ms) [and not all of them are graduate students who haven’t quite finished their D.Phil].
http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/faculty/faculty_members_categ.shtml
DJW 09.30.04 at 7:41 am
One of the basic beliefs of the conservative Cold Warriers was that the communist states were increasingly stronger, both economically and militarily. Indeed, if one were to compare living conditions in East and West Germany, for an example parallel to that of the two Koreas, up through the late 1960’s the comparisons would probably, if superficially, favor the East due to its fairer distribution of wealth and emphasis on heavy industry. This belief was an essential predicate for the conservative advocacy of a strong military and economic response to the “Soviet threat”. On the other hand, belief in the ultimate internal collapse of the communist state systems is more associated with the non-communist left, for whom deficits in transparency and democratic legitimacy were seen as fatal flaws.
vik 09.30.04 at 8:39 am
dsquared–i respect and like a lot of your other posts on subjects like economics but before you defend the dusek article, maybe you should read a little bit more on the controversy that dusek has so misleadingly presented. At this point, almost all evolutionary biologists or indeed, biologists in general (at least those who kept up with the literature) have reached a default position that is much closer to the evolutionary psychology view of Dawkins, Maynard Smith, Wilson, et al. than to anything Gould or Lewontin have presented. In fact, if you examine the latter two’s writings, they have themselves have moved significantly, though not far enough, from what Lewontin called his “Marxist science” as the evidence from many different fields (genetic mapping, archaeology, bio. anthropology, etc.) has accumulated over the last couple decades. Dusek’s article ignores so many pertinent issues that go to the heart of his criticisms that it would be too long to respond to the entire thing in this forum. If you would like, I can give you links to some much better reviews from Nature, Science, Neuron, etc. or address a specific subpart (whichever you find most convincing) of Dusek’s argument so that maybe your views could ‘evolve’ into something more factually based and not politically based. Also “non-reductionist biosocial account of humans” is an empty feel-good phrase which has no obvious verifiable meaning, other than being possibly reminiscent of Lysenkoism or some other catchword-bound philosophy of science. Please elaborate.
vik 09.30.04 at 8:49 am
Peter–yeah to my mind most of the criticism of EP is coming from a political basis and that retards any serious scientific examination of its najor flaws as a comprehensive theory (like its reliance on an EEA, etc.) The fact that Dusek has only one section where he even attempts a real critique rather than sneering or relying on innuendo or people’s prejudices towards feel-good social theories made him lose credibility totally in my eyes..
liberal japonicus 09.30.04 at 11:51 am
My Greek prof was walking thru the union and I said ‘Dr. Clark’, and he started looking up in the air. I said ‘Over here’ and he came over and said ‘I thought the gods were talking to me’. My girlfriend said ‘Why would they call you Dr.?’
dsquared 09.30.04 at 12:31 pm
At this point, almost all evolutionary biologists or indeed, biologists in general (at least those who kept up with the literature) have reached a default position that is much closer to the evolutionary psychology view of Dawkins, Maynard Smith, Wilson, et al. than to anything Gould or Lewontin have presented
Really? They have reached the position that panselectionism is the correct view of adaptation? They have rejected Eldredge’s views on the importance of mass extinctions? They maintain that selection occurs at the level of the DNA sequence? They maintain that selection coefficients in gene selection models have straightforward biological interpretation? In the face of the evidence from brain injuries, they believe that most important behaviours are governed by modular structures? Are you sure?
It is quite visible even from a Dawkins-friendly account such as Kim Sterelny’s that the position is in fact that:
1) Gould (by the time of his death), Eldredge, Lewontin, the Roses et al have not changed their position at all.
2) Dawkins, Matt Ridley and Maynard Smith have all said that, properly understood, there was very little difference between their position and those of Gould, Eldredge, Lewontin, the Roses et al.
3) In some way, the EP crowd have called this a triumph. It isn’t one.
It is notable, by the way, that the fundamental dishonesty of the current position of evolutionary psychology is visible in the very title of Dawkins’ famous book. If you interrogated him today on what he means by “The Selfish Gene”, he would be forced into the position that the word “Selfish” is not meant in its normal sense, but in a very special sense used by scientists as a technical term, but the word “Gene” is not meant to refer to a gene in the sense used by geneticists, but is meant in an everyday language sense of a unit of selection! It’s pretty hard to get a volte-face like that into a three-word title, but it’s what you end up doing if, like Pinker and Dawkins, you are addicted to the rush that comes from defending a weak and sensible theory then attacking with a strong and silly one.
Finally, I’ll take you up on your offer. In the two sections of his essay entitled “The Campaign Against Anthropological Relativism” and “The New Twin Studies”, Dusek outlines several cases in which evolutionary psychologists made use of untrue claims in their popular works. Why is Dusek wrong? We can deal with the next sections in order.
Sam 09.30.04 at 1:29 pm
On the titling–another possibility, which may be sloppy but is not deliberately rude, is that Mr Bhagwati is using the titles to which he is most accustomed–those that the respective economists held when he knew them best. I find myself doing that fairly often, regardless of the gender of the persons involved. People who were my professors and had PhDs are Dr. So-and-so; people who were my TA’s (graduate students, assisting a professor), but now are PhDs, I frequently refer to as Mr./Ms. So-and-so unless I make a conscious effort to remember that their title has changed.
RS 09.30.04 at 1:43 pm
dsquared, I bet you thought Midgley’s “Gene-Juggling” was a powerful expose of the failings of “The Selfish Gene” didn’t you?
There is no hope for you. Dawkins would say that ‘selfish’ was not meant in its normal sense etc now, and he would have said it at the time. If you have read the book, which I must assume you haven’t, that much would be quite clear. In fact, if you were familiar with the field that “The Selfish Gene” comes from, you would understand that ‘gene’ is always used to refer to unit of selection, not a chunk of DNA.
That isn’t to say that much of EP isn’t rubbish, but don’t throw the biological baby out with the EP bathwater.
And, finally, Dawkins is/was a biologist, he didn’t and doesn’t do EP.
Peter 09.30.04 at 3:05 pm
Vik, I made the mistake, a few years ago, of sharing the stage with a couple of SSKers at a panel discussion of “science studies” organized by our (largely positivist/realist) philosophy of science dept. They (the SKKers) had packed the hall with their supporters and sociobiology/EP quickly became their favorite whipping boy. Though I have reservations about many of EP’s more simplistic explanations, it was clear that EP here was standing in for all of science, which was being tarred with a broad political brush. Attempts by myself and a physics colleague (both of us liberal-left) to engage in a serious discussion of scientific practice were futile; nothing less than our public mea culpa would have satisfied the braying crowd. It was an unnerving experience, like being caught in a conference on “intelligent design”.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 3:24 pm
dsquared, I bet
So do I; I also smoke, drink and swear.
But in between doing so, I occasionally like to have a rational argument. In fact, I often find I can combine these pleasures by swearing while having a rational argument about selective breeding of racehorses with a ciggy dangling out of my mouth. I haven’t managed to drink simultaneously, but I’m taking a ventriloquism course which might help.
In any case, back to my original point. Do you, or any of your mates, have any actual arguments you’re going to favour me with, or are you just going to keep on putting up names of your favourite boogeymen in the hope I’ll shout “boo!”.
As it happens, I think that “Gene-juggling” was an excellent essay, and did a lot of very good work in forcing Dawkins to sharpen up his ideas and stop making unqualified statements about human behaviour. I particularly like the line about sociobiologists’ disavowals of attributing agency to genes being “like the paternosters of Mafia killers”. Also, Midgely (although this point was not original to her; I believe it to be Steven Rose’s) homes in like a laser on the main flaw in the genetics of the Selfish Gene; that Dawkins needs inherited traits to be modular to support his selectionist view, but that modular traits can’t be expressed by complexes.
by the way, Dawkins did believe that units of selection were chunks of DNA at the time of the selfish gene; before the conclusion of the Human Genome Project, this was a tenable view.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 3:29 pm
Ahhh, another boogeyman rears its head. Sadly, I don’t go “boo!” when people talk about the sociology of scientific knowledge, either. Particularly not when it’s being raised as a red herring by someone on the back foot talking about evolutionary psychology.
RS 09.30.04 at 4:19 pm
By chunks of DNA I refer to ‘genes’ as molecular biologists would define them (reading frames, exons etc) versus ‘genes’ as units of selection as evolutionary biologists might refer to them.
dsquared, how exactly did the human genome project show that chunks of DNA weren’t units of selection?
Also, dsquared, what do you mean by ‘modular’ and ‘traits’ – for instance, if an allele or haplotype gives an incremental advantage on some complex trait (I dunno, by making it a bit longer or somesuch) surely that can be selected for?
RS 09.30.04 at 4:29 pm
“In the face of the evidence from brain injuries, they believe that most important behaviours are governed by modular structures?”
Have you heard of cognitive neuropsychology?
RS 09.30.04 at 4:37 pm
dsquared, final qn, what exactly is the unit of selection?
Chris Stephens 09.30.04 at 6:10 pm
rs-
How about this definition, from Sober’s _Philosophy of Biology_
“X is a unit of selection in the evolution of trait T in lineage L if and only if T evolved in L because T conferred a benefit on Xs” (p. 89).
Of course, you can define it in other ways, and you can define it (as Dawkins 1976 _sometimes_ seems to) so that it isn’t an empirical matter whether the “gene” is the only unit of selection, but that doesn’t seem to be a fruitful way to explicate the terms of the original debate.
Folks like G. C. Williams (Adaptation and Natural Selection) at least allowed for the possibility of group selection (e.g., female biased sex ratios) – and sure enough, later, such ratios were found…
Chris Stephens 09.30.04 at 6:19 pm
On massive modularity,
Here is a recent paper by one of its proponents, but who clearly realizes that the jury is still out “I agreed then, and I still agree today, that our understanding of cognitive architecture is way too poor, and the best we can do is try and speculate intelligently (which is great fun anyhow).” – Dan Sperber.
See http://www.dan.sperber.com/modularity.htm
dsquared 09.30.04 at 6:24 pm
The simple number of genes in the human genotype was the end of the line for Dawkins’ version of genic selection. There simply aren’t enough genes to code for all the things that the so-called “Ultra-Darwinians” wanted to claim were genetically determined in humans.
One can try and save the theory by retreating to a world in which a “gene” is just a unit of selection (at the price of some hollow laughter from Steve Rose), but this doesn’t actually gain much. Because now, one is committed to a theory under which traits are inherited by a mechanism of gene-complexes. Which makes it very difficult to see how individual traits could be the object of natural selection, unless one can think of a way in which there could be inheritance of traits otherwise than genetically[1].
I have heard of cognitive neuropsychology and indeed have read Steven Rose’s excellent book on the subject. I stand by my view that the vast majority of the interesting things human beings do are things that can be relearned by people who have lost the ability to do them after a brain injury, and thus that the brain is not a swiss army knife.
And finally, the answer to the question “what is the unit of selection?” depends entirely on the context in which the question is being asked. I agree with Niles Eldredge that the assumption that there has to be a single “unit of selection” which is the key to every question from paleontology to child development, was the original mistake.
Now, are you going to make any arguments of your own (I notice that you still haven’t!), or are you just going to continue on a fishing expedition, trying to catch me out making a mistake of some kind so that you can use it as an excuse to dismiss me as an ignorant social scientist who probably believes in God? Don’t necessarily expect my co-operation if the answer is the second one.
(btw, I’m going to be setting a short test on stochastic calculus soon for anyone who wants to represent themselves as a “hard science” type in conversation with me. So better start mugging up on Feynman-Kac derivatives)
[1]There is of course an obvious way in which individual traits could be inherited other than genetically; they could be inherited culturally. But somehow this way out never seemed all that attractive to the Dawkins crowd.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 6:26 pm
The simple number of genes in the human genotype was the end of the line for Dawkins’ version of genic selection. There simply aren’t enough genes to code for all the things that the so-called “Ultra-Darwinians” wanted to claim were genetically determined in humans.
One can try and save the theory by retreating to a world in which a “gene” is just a unit of selection (at the price of some hollow laughter from Steve Rose), but this doesn’t actually gain much. Because now, one is committed to a theory under which traits are inherited by a mechanism of gene-complexes. Which makes it very difficult to see how individual traits could be the object of natural selection, unless one can think of a way in which there could be inheritance of traits otherwise than genetically[1].
I have heard of cognitive neuropsychology and indeed have read Steven Rose’s excellent book on the subject. I stand by my view that the vast majority of the interesting things human beings do are things that can be relearned by people who have lost the ability to do them after a brain injury, and thus that the brain is not a swiss army knife.
And finally, the answer to the question “what is the unit of selection?” depends entirely on the context in which the question is being asked. I agree with Niles Eldredge that the assumption that there has to be a single “unit of selection” which is the key to every question from paleontology to child development, was the original mistake.
Now, are you going to make any arguments of your own (I notice that you still haven’t!), or are you just going to continue on a fishing expedition, trying to catch me out making a mistake of some kind so that you can use it as an excuse to dismiss me as an ignorant social scientist who probably believes in God? Don’t necessarily expect my co-operation if the answer is the second one.
(btw, I’m going to be setting a short test on stochastic calculus soon for anyone who wants to represent themselves as a “hard science” type in conversation with me. So better start mugging up on Feynman-Kac derivatives)
[1]There is of course an obvious way in which individual traits could be inherited other than genetically; they could be inherited culturally. But somehow this way out never seemed all that attractive to the Dawkins crowd.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 6:28 pm
hah! the old “500 Server Error” trick even catches me out sometimes!
Chris Stephens 09.30.04 at 6:35 pm
Oh, just in case your copy of _The Selfish Gene_ isn’t handy, here’s the reference in Dawkins I was thinking of (p. 33)
“We saw that some people regard the species as the unit of selection, others the population or group within the species, and yet others the individual. I said that I preferred to think of the gene as the fundamental unit of natural selection, and therefore the fundamental unit of self-interest. What I have now done is _define_ the gene is such a way that I cannot help being right!”
Clever move! Take a debate (units of selection) that apparently turned on empirical issues (see Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection, etc.) and define your terms so that your side is right. If it were only so easy…
Pak Dae Sung 09.30.04 at 8:21 pm
When I was a child I lived near the border to North korea and they would offer us meat and nice clothes because we were too poor in the south to get it ourselves.
Some of my friends left to North from the South because it was much more prosperous there.
But now the tables have turned obviously…
Peter 09.30.04 at 8:48 pm
btw, I’m going to be setting a short test on stochastic calculus soon for anyone who wants to represent themselves as a “hard science†type in conversation with me. So better start mugging up on Feynman-Kac derivatives
Mission accomplished, Dan, we won’t mess with you, no sirree (are you wearing your flyboy suit?)… I think I’d better slink back to my molgen work before you dismiss it as a fictional construct.
dsquared 09.30.04 at 8:57 pm
thanks for your insults, peter.
Donald Johnson 09.30.04 at 9:09 pm
The argument over Dawkins is fascinating (I mean that) and I’m also tempted to try and find out something about stochastic calculus (I even mean that), but the most interesting post in this thread was that by Pak Dae Sung. The chance of hearing anything like that outside of a book by Bruce Cumings is pretty close to zero in the United States. (I’m not sure where Dsquare’s quote on North Korea’s initial prosperity came from–the link didn’t work for me. It sounded familiar though. Was it Cumings?)
dsquared 09.30.04 at 9:37 pm
It’s from whoever did the Wikipedia entry on North Korea, mirrored on some site or other.
If you’re really keen on having a go at stochastic calculus, btw, by far the least painful book on the subject is “Financial Calculus” by Baxter & Rennie. After that, “The Mathematics of Financial Derivatives” by Salih Neftci.
kevin donoghue 09.30.04 at 11:30 pm
RS, 1:43pm: “if you were familiar with the field that “The Selfish Gene†comes from, you would understand that ‘gene’ is always used to refer to unit of selection, not a chunk of DNA.â€
RS, 4:37pm: “dsquared, final qn, what exactly is the unit of selection?â€
I’m not at all familiar with the field myself, but I can’t help wondering why someone, who evidently is familiar with said field, would use the term “unit of selection†several hours before requesting a definition.
RS, Peter, Vik: for all I know you may have a really excellent case. If so, please present it. Don’t be shy. Right now D-squared seems to have the debating chamber to himself. This is unsatisfactory.
vik 10.01.04 at 12:11 am
First off, we need to deal with some fundamental issues that dquared doesnt understand before we can even get to the arguments.
“The simple number of genes in the human genotype was the end of the line for Dawkins’ version of genic selection. There simply aren’t enough genes to code for all the things that the so-called “Ultra-Darwinians†wanted to claim were genetically determined in humans.”
This statement is completely false yet widely disseminated. It reveals a lack of understanding of the mechanics of how genes work. One gene can code for many many different proteins through such mechanisms as splicing, etc. and genes.For instance, the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene has a critical role in everything from glucose regulation and matabolism, stress (both physical and emotional), skin coloring, pain control, and even on higher cognitive levels, emotional memories.
For those who don’t believe that genetic determinants play a large role in even the most subtle traits like work addictedness, here is a very recent paper that demonstrates just how far beyond the simplistic world of Gould and the stale arguments of Lewontin, science has moved…
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0403639101v1?view=abstract
and here is a nice review from work of even that granddaddy of controversial traits, intelligence–even here, there is far more evidence of a basis for which a biologic “panselectionism” as you insist on calling it could work:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15152197
Dsquared, calculus has stayed much more static than behavioral biology or even biology (considering the central dogma was only completed 30 years ago) and to rely on stale news like Gould’s criticisms or to try to use pop science to fill in one’s views is sometimes stupid and always dangerous.
vik 10.01.04 at 12:12 am
First off, we need to deal with some fundamental issues that dquared doesnt understand before we can even get to the arguments.
“The simple number of genes in the human genotype was the end of the line for Dawkins’ version of genic selection. There simply aren’t enough genes to code for all the things that the so-called “Ultra-Darwinians†wanted to claim were genetically determined in humans.”
This statement is completely false yet widely disseminated. It reveals a lack of understanding of the mechanics of how genes work. One gene can code for many many different proteins through such mechanisms as splicing, etc. and genes.For instance, the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene has a critical role in everything from glucose regulation and matabolism, stress (both physical and emotional), skin coloring, pain control, and even on higher cognitive levels, emotional memories.
For those who don’t believe that genetic determinants play a large role in even the most subtle traits like work addictedness, here is a very recent paper that demonstrates just how far beyond the simplistic world of Gould and the stale arguments of Lewontin, science has moved…
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0403639101v1?view=abstract
and here is a nice review from work of even that granddaddy of controversial traits, intelligence–even here, there is far more evidence of a basis for which a biologic “panselectionism” as you insist on calling it could work:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15152197
Dsquared, calculus has stayed much more static than behavioral biology or even biology (considering the central dogma was only completed 30 years ago) and to rely on stale news like Gould’s criticisms or to try to use pop science to fill in one’s views is sometimes stupid and always dangerous.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 12:34 am
For instance, the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene has a critical role in everything from glucose regulation and matabolism, stress (both physical and emotional), skin coloring, pain control, and even on higher cognitive levels, emotional memories.
In which case, these traits cannot be selected for separately from each other, at the genic level. Which was kind of my point.
Meanwhile, “addictedness” is not a “subtle trait” if what you mean is physical addiction, and the paper you linked to isn’t relevant if what you mean is psychological addiction. And please, can it with the insults (“stale”, “outdated”, “simplistic” “pop science”). They don’t add anything to your case.
Meanwhile, I’m still not convinced that you’re not on a simple fishing expedition. The point with respect to sociobiology that I’m trying to make is:
1) the “ultra-Darwinian” view of gene selection was the wrong horse to back, and you haven’t made any arguments against this other than to start accusing me of liking Mary Midgeley (which I in fact do).
2) that cultural inheritance is a much more important determinant of behaviour than genetic inheritance, and you haven’t made any arguments against this.
3) that different levels of explanation require different levels of selection to be considered, including the psychological and the sociological, which you haven’t made any arguments against.
and
4) that Dusek was substantially right in pointing to a number of unethical uses of rhetoric made by evolutionary psychologists, which you haven’t made any arguments against despite having promised to do so.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 12:35 am
For instance, the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene has a critical role in everything from glucose regulation and matabolism, stress (both physical and emotional), skin coloring, pain control, and even on higher cognitive levels, emotional memories.
In which case, these traits cannot be selected for separately from each other, at the genic level. Which was kind of my point.
Meanwhile, “addictedness” is not a “subtle trait” if what you mean is physical addiction, and the paper you linked to isn’t relevant if what you mean is psychological addiction. And please, can it with the insults (“stale”, “outdated”, “simplistic” “pop science”). They don’t add anything to your case.
Meanwhile, I’m still not convinced that you’re not on a simple fishing expedition. The point with respect to sociobiology that I’m trying to make is:
1) the “ultra-Darwinian” view of gene selection was the wrong horse to back, and you haven’t made any arguments against this other than to start accusing me of liking Mary Midgeley (which I in fact do).
2) that cultural inheritance is a much more important determinant of behaviour than genetic inheritance, and you haven’t made any arguments against this.
3) that different levels of explanation require different levels of selection to be considered, including the psychological and the sociological, which you haven’t made any arguments against.
and
4) that Dusek was substantially right in pointing to a number of unethical uses of rhetoric made by evolutionary psychologists, which you haven’t made any arguments against despite having promised to do so.
eudoxis 10.01.04 at 12:37 am
“The simple number of genes in the human genotype was the end of the line for Dawkins’ version of genic selection. There simply aren’t enough genes to code for all the things that the so-called “Ultra-Darwinians†wanted to claim were genetically determined in humans.
One can try and save the theory by retreating to a world in which a “gene†is just a unit of selection (at the price of some hollow laughter from Steve Rose), but this doesn’t actually gain much. Because now, one is committed to a theory under which traits are inherited by a mechanism of gene-complexes. Which makes it very difficult to see how individual traits could be the object of natural selection, unless one can think of a way in which there could be inheritance of traits otherwise than genetically.”
This sounds suspiciously like irreducible complexity. It is not the end of the line for the “gene as unit of selection.” And there wasn’t a time that the gene as unit of selection meant chunks of DNA (different than gene units) before the HGP. Genes are still units of selection (but not the only units of selection) because they are units of expression even when they interact (in often complex ways) with other genes. The reason is that the change (mutation) (usually) occurs at the level of the gene. The discovery that downstream from the gene not just one but often more than one protein, indeed whole systems and organisms may be affected by that gene does not change the notion that it is a mutation in a single gene that affects the outcome available for selection. Thus, if a complex trait is not adaptive and leads to reduced fitness of the organism, it can be traced to a mutation in a single gene. (After all, whole organisms die because of mutations in single genes; evolution proceeds by an algorithmic process of differential reproductive success.) For complex traits, especially, for the developmental trajectory of whole organisms, genes are employed in a complex hierarchical network. There are enough genes in the genome to code for all human functions we can describe and, theoretically, far more. In some ways this is a philosophical question.
Scientists do explore the world with a reductionist view, and biologist, in particular, are concerned with a functional understanding of structure and interactions. As many human behavioral and cognitive traits are traced to an origin in genes congruent with structural and functional deficits, it is no longer a question whether or how a number of genes contribute to human behavior.
The bleeding edges of any science field are always in flux and no single idea or person is controlling the general direction of thought. It is simply absurd, as Dusek does, to imply that evolutionary psychologists, indeed, all biological scientists are impeding the search for the true evolutionary meaning of sociobiology.
vik 10.01.04 at 12:42 am
“I stand by my view that the vast majority of the interesting things human beings do are things that can be relearned by people who have lost the ability to do them after a brain injury, and thus that the brain is not a swiss army knife”
Wow this is a ridiculous claim. First off, brain lesions have been invaluable in giving evidence of where prospective pathways occur grossly and how they interact functionally and physiologically, so your claim that they in any way support your ideas is crap. I think you are confusing the notion of synaptic plasticity with the pseudoscientific blank slate theory that you apparently subscribe to. Plasticity (and its related neural phenomenon of compensation) differ depending on the age of the person injured and much more important where and how extensive the injury is and is not some permanent property of the brain. Also, these pathways depend on environmental (in the biological sense of the word, a much more extensive definition than social (or ‘hard’) science ppl use since it includes the cellular environment, neural growth factors, etc.) stimulation to develop but the possibility of significant change or even repair after the stage of maturation is remote. Read Oliver Sacks if you want a pop science version of this presented to you or just google the story of Phineas Gage, to find a stark rebuttal about how only the uninteresting things humans do are coded for by their neural pathways. Also why don’t you take Prozac or Ecstasy (yes, it too will be approved soon as a prescription drug once again) sometime and see if neurochemicals (which after all are just synthesized analogs of genetically encoded neurotrasmitters) only have boring effects on your behavior?
As to your arguments about brain modularity, I think you are taking valid scientific disputes and submerging them into an agenda that it has little place in. It is both intuitively obvious and physiologically likely that evolution has worked on the human brain and that the human brain has specialized pathways that deal with different parts of the information barrage that it is subjected to (read about the visual system for ex. which is fascinating real-life evidence of this evolutionary theory) and that these pathways have genetic components subject to evolutionary forces. Only scientists of Chomsky, Gould, etc.’s generation would deny it and the unit of selection that it had to have worked on was the gene (that entire part of the above thread is nothing but a ridiculous red herring discussion). If you don’t believe that, you are in essence denying a fundamental aspect of evolutionary theory and we need to go back to square one before we go further.
vik 10.01.04 at 1:04 am
now to dusek again:
1. Anthropological relativism of the Meadian type is in fact discredited and only someone ignorant of the field would assume that trying to start a lame argument about Mead’s Samoan data (again, Dusek presents only part of the evidence and in a misleading way) would somehow resuscitate it. In fact, the best rebuttal for beginners in the field is to check out Donald Brown’s list of human universals
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?HumanUniversals
and then you’ll realize why Pinker, etc. spent so little time dealing with Ms. Mead and why the field has wisely moved on. Watching National Geographic might satisfy your need to believe in her stuff Dsquared to a much greater extent than swallowing pretty blatantly weak arguments.
2. As to twin studies, again this was one of Dusek’s weakest areas. Aside from the ad hominem attacks, Dusek makes a big deal about Burt and then Bouchard, implying Science was negligent about publishing articles about their research. What Dusek doesnt mention are the enormous number of other twin studies that have backed up their possibly spurious claims–most of which were peer reviewed and published. For ex., the Swedish Adoption Twin Study on Aging (McClearn, Plomin, Nesselroade, Pedersen, Friberg, and de Faire, 1989, as cited in Plomin et al., 1990); or Plomin, Chipuer, and Loehlin, 1990, itself; or even, Scarr, Webber, Weinberg, and Wittig, 1981. At this point, maybe you are beginning to realize why no serious scientist bothered to even respond to Dusek’s essay.
I do congratulate you on not citing the Sex and Gender difference section (that would have been more pleasurable to rip apart but you did I hope manage to see through that one). In conclusion, all I can say is dsquared, I hope you dont apply these lax standards of proof and this tendency to fall for any attractive argument that fits your prejudices to your own academic field–its not quite ‘hard’ science.
eudoxis 10.01.04 at 1:09 am
“In which case, these traits cannot be selected for separately from each other, at the genic level. Which was kind of my point.
There is no demand with the “gene as unit of selection” that traits be selected seperately. It’s perfectly reasonable for one trait to be selected and the linked traits to come along for the ride (spandrels,etc.) But of course, it’s not always that simple. It turns out that genes that are involved in disparate traits (functions, really) do so by generating several gene products and each modulated differently. Mutations in different locations on the gene will result in different traits being affected. What’s more, when genes are activated differentially during development, not all functions attributed to the gene products of a single gene are presented as different traits at the same time.
Narrowing the opposition to the “ultra darwinian” viewpoint, however, is something I won’t object to (even if I think it is more along the line of ultra-neosynthesis that you refer to). The broad brush used by Dusek is anti-science.
cac 10.01.04 at 1:24 am
I suspect Crooked Timberites aren’t all that keen on getting aristocratic titles right, but as the wife of a kinight she could only be “Lady Robinson”. “Lady Joan Robinson” would have to be the daughter of a Duke, Marquis or Earl with the family name of Robinson.
vik 10.01.04 at 1:29 am
“In which case, these traits cannot be selected for separately from each other, at the genic level. Which was kind of my point.”
actually they can be selected for at the gene level considering all you would need are differential regulatory genes and/or splicing differences that could be favored…i advise you to go and review some molecular biology…i’m sure peter would help if you asked nicely…
“Meanwhile, “addictedness†is not a “subtle trait†if what you mean is physical addiction, and the paper you linked to isn’t relevant if what you mean is psychological addiction”
if you read the paper, you will understand that the use of gene therapy changed the monkey’s relative propensity to work for the rewards. if you dont think that is a subtle trait, then i would like an example that you would accept…also your whole attempt to use semantics about the word “addictedness” is dumb and has no relevance to your arg. or mine…
“1) the “ultra-Darwinian†view of gene selection was the wrong horse to back, and you haven’t made any arguments against this other than to start accusing me of liking Mary Midgeley (which I in fact do).”
I didn’t in fact accuse you of liking Mary Midgeley… you are mixing me up with another poster but no doubt she too has her own problems, seeing as how you seem to have fallen in love with a flawed character like Dusek…
“2) that cultural inheritance is a much more important determinant of behaviour than genetic inheritance, and you haven’t made any arguments against this.”
Now you are making a relative argument in an attempt to pull a bait and switch…you accused sociobiology/EP of being all crap via defending Dusek and then proceeded to make a bunch of pull-out-of-your-ass claims about them…i in fact have not said anything about cultural effects on human behavior and in fact, think it is obvious that culture does play a role though nowhere near as important as many (including you) think…stick to defending your own ridiculous arguments and if you want, we can debate culture’s effects on human behavior at another time…
“3) that different levels of explanation require different levels of selection to be considered, including the psychological and the sociological, which you haven’t made any arguments against.”
Why should i make any arguments against this statement? it has no real meaning in a scientific context and has no real relevance to EP, which attempts to explain evolutionarily important human behaviors and traits(mate choice, pair bonding, aggression, sexual dimorphism, etc.). Its like arguing that to explain the molecular basis of cancer, one also should have ready a theory about how different relatives will react emotionally to a diagnosis of cancer for a member of their family. Nice try dsquared…
“4) that Dusek was substantially right in pointing to a number of unethical uses of rhetoric made by evolutionary psychologists, which you haven’t made any arguments against despite having promised to do so.”
See above posts. Also I told you this forum was unsuited to the detailed debunking of Dusek that would be required considering the rampant intellectual dishonesty in his article but still contact me personally if you wish and we can go over it line by line when we both have time.
In the interim, I have to actually get back to the work I am paid for…
Peter 10.01.04 at 1:29 am
Right now D-squared seems to have the debating chamber to himself. This is unsatisfactory.
Kevin,
Dsquared always ends up having the debating chamber to himself. He sets the rules here and, as others have already noted, anyone who deigns to disagree is called a “twat” or told to go “fuck yourself”. When this thread ventured into familiar professional territory, I disregarded better judgment and seconded an unfavorable opinion about a cited paper — the badly-written, ad hominem-ridden, scattershot effort by Val Dusek. As a practicing scientist, several EP positions leave me perplexed, but I’ll take Dawkins’ meme-mongering over Dusek’s personal and political smears (“interestingly several of the leading sociobiologists and popularisers of evolutionary psychology, such as E. O. Wilson, Randy Thornhill, and Robert Wright hale [sic] from Alabama”) any day of the week. The follow-up account of my run-in with some SSKers seemed to touch a sensitive nerve, leading to Dan’s ridiculous challenge. The next step would surely have been a descent into obscenity. I commend Vik (and Eudoxis, with whom I agree that Val Dusek’s broad brush is “anti-science”) for persisting, but, for myself, I can think of more productive things to do than tangle with a foul-mouthed know-it-all.
eudoxis 10.01.04 at 1:35 am
It’s simple to do a Medline search on fMRI studies related to sex differences. There are differences in brain lateralization, visual processing, language acquisition, aging, etc.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 1:44 am
Narrowing the opposition to the “ultra darwinian†viewpoint, however, is something I won’t object to
Good, since it’s my only intention. Selection takes place at all levels, including the gene level, and every level of selection has an associated level of explanation.
Vik: reading between your abuse, I see that you have, admitted that Dusek was right on the specific claims that he made. Thank you.
On brain modularity, I think that you have also, wisely, admitted that Chris Stephens is correct and that the hypothesis of massive modularity is completely unproven (by the way, it becomes extremely difficult to know exactly what you intend to claim, because you mix up your claims with so much personal abuse. Please stop.)
It is indeed obvious that the visual cortex of the brain has evolved as a visual cortex, for the purpose of seeing. However, seeing is not part of psychology. The kind of behaviours that psychologists (and evolutionary psychologists) are concerned with, however, are not (or to make the weaker claim, not provably) determined by specialised modules. Your comments about neurochemicals are a clear red herring, btw.
Finally, I’d point out that it’s simply not true that believing in evolution commits me to your whole bill of goods and saying it does, doesn’t make it so. There is nothing in evolution which commits me to believing that there are important psychological statements which aren’t reducible to statements about genetic history.
Finally, after admitting that my 4) above was right, you appear to have ignored 1, 2 and 3 and instead settled for fishing and abuse. Please try to argue politely and honestly.
vik 10.01.04 at 1:50 am
Eudoxis: that was a very good explanation of selection at the gene level and much much better than my own hurried effort–needless to say, your assessment of dusek is accurate in my opinion…
Peter, are dan and dsquared the same person? i have never had an argument on the site with anyone and now regret having participated in this one if in fact, it really is going to descend into a flame war. in any case, i had a similar experience to yours several months ago…pretty unpleasant to say the least…
dsquared 10.01.04 at 2:00 am
Could I invite neutral observers to take a breath at this point and count the amount of personal abuse I have dished out, compared to the amount I have been asked to take?
In the meanwhile, the only claims I am currently defending are:
1) Dusek was substantially right in claiming that evolutionary psychology has taken on the mantle of sociobiology; in particular it has taken on the habit of some very dishonest debating tricks.
Status: seemingly still defensible. Peter and Vik seem to be very keen indeed on personal abuse and on stigmatising anyone disagreeing with them as “anti-science”.
2) Cultural inheritance is more important than genetic inheritance
Status: basically conceded(?). Note that I have never said that sociobiology/EP is “full of crap” and a couple of times said the opposite. I have said that I regard the specific individuals Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins as wrong on a particular point of science (so-called “ultra-Darwinism”) and in the habit of using dishonest rhetoric. The same was true of early theorists of the smoking/cancer link, however; it is a logically separate point.
3) that psychology is not reducible to physiology (also; sociology is not reducible to individual psychology).
Status: so far, not challenged.
4) That Dawkins’ view of genetic selection was wrong, and something much more like Niles Eldredge’s was right.
Status: so far, not challenged.
Thanks very much to eudoxis and Kevin D, who appear to be disagreeing with me in a civil manner. I hope to continue this debate tomorrow.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 2:03 am
btw, further to my 4), vik, are you still defending the claim:
almost all evolutionary biologists or indeed, biologists in general (at least those who kept up with the literature) have reached a default position that is much closer to the evolutionary psychology view of Dawkins, Maynard Smith, Wilson, et al. than to anything Gould or Lewontin have presented
It’s just that you haven’t mentioned it since I suggested otherwise; this thread has got rather involved and I like to keep things tidy.
vik 10.01.04 at 2:12 am
actually i address 1, 2 and 3 pretty well (read it again if you need to)…nice of you to be so concerned about politeness btw but its a pity you arent so concerned about actually addressing the numerous arguments posted by myself or Eudoxis…meaningless repetition of a catch phrase about how selection occurs at all levels does not actually constitute evidence of any kind or even a real argument. trust me, you can do better–there’s plenty out there if you only try…
“It is indeed obvious ‘that the visual cortex of the brain has evolved as a visual cortex, for the purpose of seeing. However, seeing is not part of psychology. The kind of behaviours that psychologists (and evolutionary psychologists) are concerned with, however, are not ….determined by specialised modules.”
again reread the more sophisticated arguments made by me and Eudoxis and then see if your reply makes any sense in this context (huh? seeing is not psychology? that is the best you have as a response to the papers and reviews cited?)…its clear that you also have no idea about what the word module conveys in a scientific sense or how it would be related to the concept of neural pathways…
“There is nothing in evolution which commits me to believing that there are important psychological statements which aren’t reducible to statements about genetic history”
of course you dont tell us what these important psychological statements are…as for evolution committing you to anything, if you reread my original post, maybe you will be able to understand what i actually said and not what you rephrased it in your mind as…
Reading comprehension is an important skill which if I were you, i would focus on, and if one can’t handle sarcasm, irony, or having the flaws in one’s arguments pointed out, then perhaps whining about how everyone else is dishonest or rude isnt the most productive course.
Peter 10.01.04 at 2:18 am
Yes, Vik, “Dsquared” is “Dan” is “Daniel”. This is his stomping ground, and the adjective is well earned. That nasty Val Dusek paper was what lured me to comment. I’ll now return to my customary silence. Good luck in your work.
vik 10.01.04 at 2:26 am
This is for your second 1,2,3,4 list:
Yes, further to your number 4 I am still defending the claim I made that Dawkins, Maynard Smith, et al. are much closer to the consensus than Gould, etc.
Your number 3 has been challenged numerous times with examples from the literature and real life (the psychology of workaholics, the use of antidepressants, etc.).
About your number 2, again no one has conceded that point at all. In fact it has not been argued to any extent by anyone (though I did offer you the chance to argue it later if you wished)
Finally, your number 1 about Dusek…i think the posts speak for themselves…
Also as for abuse, I dont think pointing out that you are being dishonest in your arguments and your rhetoric and have not offered a single piece of evidence (such as papers, citations, etc.) for anything you have said counts as personal abuse. Some of your examples of my language (“staleâ€, “outdatedâ€, “simplistic†“pop scienceâ€) refer to comments I made about gould, etc. while others (accusing you of not reading information correctly, rephrasing things in your mind, etc.) are factually true. Maybe you need to change your standards of abuse…
vik 10.01.04 at 2:31 am
ok dsquared now that i have found out your identity and character from numerous ppl I too am taking myself out of this argument. Wish you well in the world….
Bruce Bartlett 10.01.04 at 3:04 am
The female equivalent of being called “Sir” (i.e., a knighthood) is “Dame”, not “Lady.” The latter is the female equivalent of a Lord. However, I do not believe that the wives of knights were typically called dames. I think they only use that title if they have earned it themselves.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 3:45 am
Cac, I think is right; Joan Robinson would have been a dame if she’d won the honour herself, but as wife of Sir Austin, she’d be “Lady Robinson”, so “Lady Joan Robinson” is a mistake.
I don’t know whether Vik was sincere in saying goodbye, but on the supposition that he wasn’t, I’ll make the following points:
first, I have never been under any obligation to respond to him point by point. This was a discussion about ways of addressing female academics. As an example thereof, I linked to Dusek’s essay, in which he describes people being rude to a female academic. This point has been, I think, completely conceded.
It appears that Vik, and peter, and RS, mistook the phrase “Val Dusek” for the phrase “yer mother’s a whore and evolutionary psychology is shit, every single word of it”. An easy mistake to make, I guess, but not a claim that I am committed to.
However, I am interested in the EP debate, and thus volunteered a few opinions. To keep things clear, I provided a numbered list (sorry; I cocked up the numbering when I repeated it).
In so far as the questions on this list were addressed, vik appeared to address number 3 (on the second list) by pointing to some examples of interesting work on animals, and then making large claims about how they supported conclusions about addiction in humans (and now, apparently, “workaholics” as well!). These objections just don’t meet the original contention, that psychology is not reducible to physiology. Nor could they, because that statement is a philosophical position, not one which is a statement of the physical sciences. I immediately accused Vik of conducting a “fishing expedition”, trying to trap me into saying something I couldn’t prove about the physical sciences, and it appears I was right.
The rest of the questions went unanswered;
4, on Gould vs. Dawkins is a sociological question about what “most biologists” believe. I think I’m right on this one, but would be prepared to be proved wrong (I’ve given a list of specific falsifiable claims about what I think “most biologists” believe), and I doubt much turns on it, because either way, it’s just an appeal to majority voting.
2: on cultural versus genetic inheritance, is in principle an empirical claim, but one that the science is obviously not advanced enough to answer. I think a powerful argument in my favour is that Lamarckian inheritance (of acquired cultural traits) is a much faster mechanism than Darwinian selection.
and 4, on Dusek, appears to be correct. Dusek made the following claims, endorsed by me:
a) that evolutionary psychology is the intellectual heir of sociobiology
b) that sociobiology made a number of extremely “politically incorrect” claims, including a number of claims about racial differences and gender roles which would be wholly unacceptable in polite society today.
c) that many evolutionary psychologists appear to have found intellectual rationales for dumping the utterly unacceptable claims of sociobiology but keeping the merely un-PC ones
d) that many evolutionary psychologists have used extremely dishonest rhetorical tactics.
all of which are empirical claims about intellectual history, and all of which appear to be true.
Dusek also makes the claim, endorsed by me,
e) that c) above is much more likely to be explicable in terms of the sociology of the evolutionary psychology profession, rather than in terms of objective facts discovered by the current generation of evolutionary psychologists
for which I take as evidence that the fit between the puportedly objective conclusions, and what it would be politically convenient for them to be is just a little bit too perfect (hahaha, an “argument from design”!).
Dusek might also believe the following two claims:
f) that evolutionary psychology is complete shit, every word of it
and
g) that particular CT commenters’ mothers are whores,
but he doesn’t make them in his essay, and if he did I wouldn’t endorse them.
I look forward to discussing the matter at future dates with anyone who is able to keep the argument straight. I may apply a somewhat more rigorous standard of politeness, however; I have learned from this experience that if someone’s first remark on the subject is to accuse me of endorsing the equivalent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I shouldn’t be expecting miracles.
dsquared 10.01.04 at 3:59 am
And, wrapping up loose ends, eudoxis posted (once more, thanks for doing so clearly and politely)
This sounds suspiciously like irreducible complexity.
It does, and my apologies for that. All I wanted to express was the idea of “no possible simple one-to-one mapping of genes to traits”. In particular, the grudger-sucker models from Maynard Smith, popularised so well in “The Selfish (but really ‘selfish’) Gene (but not really ‘gene’), have a fairly obvious interpretation if there is a one-to-one mapping, but are very difficult to interpret in the world as it is; one would have to come up with some pretty fancy footwork in order to explain how the “sucker” or “grudger” traits managed to be inherited in the way the model needs them to be.
skippy 10.02.04 at 8:33 pm
Dsquared wrote:
“However, seeing is not part of psychology. The kind of behaviours that psychologists (and evolutionary psychologists) are concerned with, however, are not (or to make the weaker claim, not provably) determined by specialised modules”
What an odd thing to say. Visual perception is an utterly gigantic subject of study within psychology. And the degree to which low level visual processing interacts with higher level cognitive processing is one of the central battlegrounds in modularity/interactivity debates.
I had the feeling you were loading the deck with what you were willing to accept as “interesting human behaviors”.
Also, since this seems to have gotten lost in the mix, your earlier claims about bouncing back from brain damage are largely incorrect as well. As has been mentioned upstream, the older you get, the less able to compensate the brain is (though there’s some recent interesting data showing that old folks aren’t quite as doomed on this front as once believed).
But for the most part, any stories you read about people regaining abilities after brain damage have to do with post-trauma swelling subsiding, allowing the surrounding areas to get going again.
To be sure, therapy can help people regain some degree of lost functioning in some cases, but you don’t get back up to 100%, which is what one would expect if the brain was globally equipotential.
nick 10.04.04 at 11:02 am
This one’s all over the place, but anyway:
If you check the faculty list there is still a moderate number of people on it referred to as Mr (or Mrs, or Ms) [and not all of them are graduate students who haven’t quite finished their D.Phil].
True, which is something I do like about Oxford faculty. Though one wonders how many non D.Phils get hired these days; the philosophy faculty is a bit unusual, given that the B.Phil , but the days when the ‘undoctored’ were commonly elected to fellowships are sadly quite distant.
RS 10.04.04 at 12:44 pm
Been away but will make a few points:
1. Dsquared, your point about the human genome project ‘only’ finding 30k genes meaning that genes can’t be the unit of selection is a) wrong, b) mixing up levels/domains of explanation.
Genes in the context of 30k is stretches of DNA that make proteins. Genes in the context of units of selection could be stretches of DNA, variation in which fitness is affected. These things are different. As some one else pointed out, and as we all know, regulatory regions of DNA aren’t necessarily ‘genes’ in the nice introns/exons making proteins sense, but can be in the affecting-the-action-of-other-genes-and-thus-the-phenotype sense.
2. You have conceded that rather than brain injuries disproving modularity (your original move you’ll recall) modularity is simply an unproven assumption about the brain. I think you’ll appreciate the loss of rhetorical force here.
3. ” stand by my view that the vast majority of the interesting things human beings do are things that can be relearned by people who have lost the ability to do them after a brain injury, and thus that the brain is not a swiss army knife.”
While I agree that the brain is not just a swiss army knife, you are simply wrong about people being able to relearn most things after brain injury. In fact you are very very wrong, so wrong i don’t really know what to say. I suggest reading some introductory neuroscience and neuropsychology.
4. You may not have noticed, but i happen to regard EP as a pretty rubbish field of second-rate scholarship – however I think your dismissal of Dawkins’ concept of the selfish gene, and by extension, much of modern evolutionary biology, is over the top. I should point out again, just because you think he is (because he falls into you catch-all bag of ultra-darwinians like Pinker), dawkins does not do EP, nor does he talk that much about it, nor is his idea of the selfish gene in any way concepually dependent on a EP type view of social behaviour.
5. The reason I mentioned Midgley is that you seem to have made the same mistake she did – taking a metaphor literally when the author says it isn’t to be, then attacking said author.
see:
http://www.royalinstitutephilosophy.org/articles/dawkins_genes.htm
6. You can have an idea of genes without necessarily making them identical with DNA. Mendelian genetics was way before anyone had discovered that DNA was the material of genetic inheritence.
Doug 10.05.04 at 7:12 am
So why is it so often Mrs Thatcher, instead of any of her many other titles?
Comments on this entry are closed.