David, let me thank you again for your contributions at ASA and in this particular case for answering to my questions about ‘what exactly is a TE?’ You are obviously a careful communicator and speak with a perspective that disallows ideology to obscure your position. Though I do not always agree with your perspectives, I respect how you communicate them and learn from the way that you ask me to consider my views. I probably would have left ASA’s forum long ago if not for your posts.
Let me address then the most contentious of your recent words first:
“[T]he cosmos has been changing through time. Calculations based on our best physical models indicate that it will continue to change. Calculating backwards points to a point and time of origin…” – David Campbell
Yes, the cosmos has been and IS changing-through-time, but this does not mean that it is ‘evolving!’ ‘Change’ and ‘evolution’ are NOT synonymous terms. ‘Cosmological evolution’ is thus entirely questionable, even if one grants (as both you and I do) that the cosmos changes. Didn’t we cover this ground already? Thus, calculations may (be said to) change, but not evolve. The latter sentence of your above trio is provocative and does suggest an Alpha point, I agree. It may then be an issue of how much our ‘calculations’ can ‘prove’ the/an Alpha point that is a major question here. Teilhard took a stab at it.
“I think your study of sociological models may promote miscommunication with biologists. Culture certainly changes over time. As a whole, it has become more complex and technologically advanced over time, though there are certainly reversals and there are people groups who have maintained a relatively ancient-looking pattern while others change rapidly. On the other hand, there's little reason to suppose that cultures inevitably must change according to certain patterns.” – David C.
It is also highly possible that biologists simply dismiss my ‘sociological models’ out of hand. When was the last time you witnessed a biologist give a sociologist the time of day? Take for example the farce of socio-biology; it is usually biologists dictating to sociologists that they are ‘lower’ in the/a hierarchy of disciplines and thus should listen to the more important (read: more reductionistic) areas of the contemporary academy.
In supporting your view, I fully admit, though it is not really necessary to do so, that ‘culture changes over time.’ However, I will argue with you and on grounds unfamiliar to you that culture does not evolve. Culture is not reducible to (or determined solely by) biology. Now you have the past, present and the great synthesizer Theodosius (‘gift from G-D’) Dobzhansky on your side (not to mention a throng of materialistically-oriented cultural theorists and philosophers of culture) and I have Pitirim (the child iconographer) Sorokin, the future and a gift of vision that does not balk at a mere pseudo-consensus in the fragmented field. Culture changes-over-time, but it most correctly stated does not evolve.
I openly contend that ‘cultural evolution,’ one of the three-part series in Dobzhansky’s ‘modern synthesis’ scenario is simply improper and does not take into account the complexity and reflexivity of social-humanitarian sciences/scholarship. Dobzhansky was not a culturologist, though he was certainly an Orthodox Christian scientist.
Biology most likely ‘evolves’ (by this I mean that biologists [are free to] use the term ‘evolve’ to describe/explain biological change-over-time). But ‘culture’ is wrongly said by Dobzhansky and others to ‘evolve’ and you will need to recruit a culturologist or cultural (studies) scientist here to ASA with ‘proofs’ to convince me otherwise. Dobzhansky holds no authority in culturology, as I’m sure you will readily acknowledge.
“Biological evolution is the middle term of the evolutionary triad – cosmic, biological, and human.” – T. Dobzhansky (“The Biology of Ultimate Concern,” NY, 1967: 40)
“Biology is the realism of evolution.” – Daniel Boorstin
“Sociology is the surrealism of evolution.” – Gregory Arago
There are thus many examples that contradict Dobzhansky’s and your claims that cultural change = cultural evolution. Technological advance’ is no more synonymous with ‘evolution’ than ‘progress’ is. This theoretical view (i.e. evolution does not = progress) has been argued by many people, including one of the most influential social scientists alive today, Anthony Giddens, and former President of the International Sociological Association Pyotr Sztompka, as well as even/also by ‘neo-evolutionists.’ I am very glad that you acknowledge ‘reversals’ as well as the fact that ‘cultures do not inevitably change according to certain patterns’ (which is what the evolutionary sociologists believed) because they are parts of the non-evolutionary/post-evolutionary perspective I am referring to.
David C. wrote: “it is unclear that biological systems should be considered as analogous to computers or engineering projects. There are some useful similarities but also significant differences.”
I think we are fully in agreement on this. It is likely one area where we also agree the IDM is misleading with it’s ‘organisms are machines’ style of approach. Just because some biologists have chosen the language of ‘molecular machines’ (which Behe repeats and repeats and repeats) does not mean that biology can be dictated to by engineering or vice versa. The sovereignty of these fields needs to be respected and clarified.
“Probably some people are carried away by the success that biological evolution has in explaining biology and try to apply it to everything, just as Marx, Freud, etc. recognized that money, sex, etc. motivate people more than we realize or care to admit and then wrongly jumped to making it the sole factor.” – David C.
This comment is an excellent example of the clarity that can be found when a person practises neutrality instead of towing some scientific-party line. David mentions Marx and Freud, but could just as well speak here of Lysenko or Dawkins. Unfortunately, I would include persons like Pim and even X when they refuse to consider their tendency to apply a limited theory to ‘everything.’ Evolutionary as a theory is all too obviously limited, yet many, many biologists and other natural scientists, including TEs have elevated it into something much greater than is wisely acceptable.
“I don't know many examples of someone going from an evolutionary, theistic perspective to a process position, so I can only suggest possible reasons rather than known causes in general.” – David
If there are any such persons, I’d be glad to hear about them. And if not, then I wonder where peoples’ priorities lie. ‘Process’ positions (including philosophy and theology) surely need to be addressed at ASA – this would help to clarify the ‘origins’ vs. ‘processes’ issue that I raised with which David C. cautiously agreed. Evolution IS predominantly about ‘processes,’ while ‘creation’ IS about ‘origins’ and ‘originality.’ What happens with TE views, and perhaps even to a further extent with EC’s also, is a conflation of these two very different (though in some ways complementary) concepts/percepts. I have tried to show that this conflation is faulty, whereas George Murphy has remained silent on the topic.
“[I]t is unclear that biological systems should be considered as analogous to computers or engineering projects. There are some useful similarities but also significant differences.” – David C.
Yes. And this is exactly the problem I have raised with the IDM’s leadership in personal contact wrt social-humanitarian science. Biological systems are not (fully) analogous to/with human individuals or societies. Thus, it makes complete sense to say that a person ‘designs’ something, even (with proper caution taken) that smth was ‘designed intelligently.’ However, to draw a direct analogy btw biology and human-social science/societies is deceptively over-reaching; here I agree with Steve Fuller’s contention that ‘intelligent design’ in the IDM’s conception of it is surprisingly anthropocentric. Yet it still contains aspects of (humanistic) scientific methodology when the IDM tames its ideology and rhetoric.
“God is just as involved in events that happen according to known natural laws as in events that don't.” – David C.
Yes, yes, YES!
Let’s leave discussion of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Henri Bergson space for another time, shall we? I’ve discovered much and been impressed and surprised by much from both of these authors in the past two months. Dobzhansky became President of the Teilhard society and I am reading his “The Teilhardian Synthesis” right now (i.e. in the days surrounding this post). Bergson’s language is so closely duplicated by some of the TE and EC voices I’ve listened to here that it would be a surprise to discover that many people at ASA hadn’t read at least excerpts from his “Creative Evolution” (1907/1911).
Thanks again, David.
Warm regards,
Gregory
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Received on Sat Sep 8 15:26:22 2007
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