Re: A question of timing


"Michael Nuwer" <StopSpam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dflqsf$1s38$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>g wrote:
>>
>> Theories of "human nature" and theories of "correct polity" (and in the
>> past
>> couple of centuries theories of management of "workers") abound.
>
> Sorry "g" I have no idea how your comments relate to my question. Nor do
> I understand what you are trying to argue.
>
> Here are a few papers if you are interested in reading.
>
> Pro:
> http://www.meister.u-net.com/economics/darwin-econ.pdf
> https://papers.econ.mpg.de/evo/discussionpapers/2004-24.pdf
>
> Con:
> https://papers.econ.mpg.de/evo/discussionpapers/2004-15.pdf
> https://papers.econ.mpg.de/evo/discussionpapers/2004-20.pdf
>
> Many physical scientists would maintain that social science is not
> really science. There is no doubt that social science is not an
> experimental science, but we do the best we can with the tools we have
> and with the subject matter that we have to deal with. At the end of the
> day our analysis and conclusions do not depend on whether we are real
> scientists.
>
> Michael Nuwer

Michael,

Understood and accepted.

My objection was to what I perceived to be a suggestion (not necessarily by
you) that there are 1:1 parallels between social evolution, biological
evolution, cosmological evolution, and other evolutions. There are not.
Each of these evolutionary "systems" shares a few common characteristics
with the others -- each being, after all, a process of change over time; but
each also has a unique dynamic, and features peculiar only to itself.

FREQUENTLY comments on news groups make vague insinuations as to how
something is so in one of these systems (evolution of political 'organs of
state,' for example) because it is true in another (for example the behavior
of gazels in Africa, or wild horses on the American planes, or Orangutans in
Sumatra). More often than not, the choice of which is dependent only upon
some homespun point a contributer wishes to pass off as having been thought
out. If one wishes to suggest, for example, that humans have genes that
program them for herding, one speaks of family groups of hunter-gatherers
and compares that to the behavior of gazelles -- whereas, if one wishes to
speak of the nature of humans who are "natural leaders," he speaks of the
young male wild horses who remain at a distance from the herd, protecting
the herd against predators, while interacting with the herd only as
challengers of the dominant male. But, then, if someone wishes to speak of
independent action and thought, he might refer to the highly independent
behavior of the orangutans.

Such attempts at drawing parallels would be hillarious, if they were not
dead serious.

But as to what I am arguing?

FOR: The use of solid facts and sound reason in estimating how and why any
kind of evolution occurs, as opposed to vague, sweeping, ambiguous, grossly
simplistic, impressionistic assumptions of parallels where no parallels
exist.

Now IF, as one sbe contributor suggested, there might be a connection
between human participation in organizational 'organs,' and herding behavior
of wild bovines, and then seek to connect the two by alluding to the
advantages of hunter-gatherer humans (or pre-humans) to stick together in
family or tribal groups...? That makes about as much sense as implying that
the affinity of some humans for bon bons is related to the use of grape
shot, in lieu of cannon balls.

I'm not going to say there IS no connection between bon bons and grape
shot -- or between the behavior of wild bovids and members of of, say, AARP.
I'm just saying that if one is going to suggest that the nature of the one
is linked to the other, then the least he might to is to demonstrate some
TESTABLE connection between them.

Granted -- that there are some patterns in social, political phenomena. It
is very hard for ANYONE to find fine agreement among those who study these
phenomena, for the simple reason that so many have so much invested, by way
of interests that stand to be impacted by how such things are viewed as:
legitimacy of positions of power; human rights; distributions of governing
authority; legal sanctions; police powers; distribution of wealth. The
stances of individuals, groups, organs of state... vary in accordance with
whose
interests are at stake, and who happens to be the current king/queen of the
mountain and who is favored by him/her and the extant power distribution.

Biological evolution has enormously more variation in kinds and amounts of
participation in the mix, than do participants in a human
politico-socio-economic dynamic. Also, man's role as current "king of the
mountain," in bio-evolution is relatively recent in its arrival, and has
many earmarks of self-defeating tendencies -- not the least of which are:
potential for using our intelligence and our technology to destroy one
another; and, inability to curb the use of reason and technology for the
rapid exhausting of Earth resources, and rapid toxification of Earth's
ecology.

Whereas I have argued against weak drawings of parallels between human
behavior and the behaviors of other species, I would invite thought as to
how current aggregate human behavior might be compared to the behavior of
yeast in a brewing vat. The yeast organisms, in a capsulized invironment
(brewing vat), predictably multiply until they perish from their own
collective excrement. Are humans capable of using their intelligence to
avoid a similar result?

I believe this is a much less far-fetched parallel than one attempted to
equate hunting-gathering by tribes to herding tendencies among bovines. All
one need do to confirm it is periodically to titer the soil and the water
of Earth, randomly, for percentage of contaminants emanating directly from
collective human behavior.

One contributor to sbe inquired whether I am pessimistic.

Titering of soil and water is not some vague, ethereal, forced analogy. It
is a valid and reliable way of testing.

Biological evolution has been traced back to within a scant million or two
years after Earth ceased to be molten. The current "dominance" of man -- as
biological king of the mountain -- is barely a blip on the current tail end
of that. And hard evidence points to a possibility that -- in terms of
geological and evolutionary time -- it is destined to be far shorter-lived
than was the rule of the dinosaurs.

Will we use our collective intelligence to turn around our collective
behavior, on "vat" Earth? Or will we continue on as yeasts do, in a brewing
vat?

If this is a stupid question, or one that makes anyone feel resentful, my
apologies. Peace. Goodwill. Happy dreams.

g





>
>>
>> To a "social Darwinist," the concept falls on receptive ears and makes
>> perfect sense. My question, however, is this: is it SCIENCE.
>>
>> To the German populace, during the rise of the Third Reich, Nazism made
>> PERFECT SENSE. It's most successful proponent, Mr. A, Schickelgruber
>> (better known to many as Hitler) was a compelling speaker. And he was
>> one
>> of the world's most skilled workers of a crowd. People of much
>> intelligence
>> and varied kinds of life experience got swept up by the "logic." It had
>> definitions. It had logic. It gave people a frame of reference onto
>> which
>> to hang almost everything going on around them. It made people who were
>> suffering the worst that any economic situation could make people feel,
>> and
>> people whose government was not doing anything effective about their
>> suffering have HOPE. But was it SCIENCE?
>>
>> To the people who suffered during the early days of industrialization
>> (before any government assumed responsibility for putting a bottom under
>> wages, or any limits on how many hours per day children could be required
>> to
>> work (and other exploitations) Marxism made perfect sense. It had
>> definitions. It had logic. It gave people a frame of thought into which
>> they could fit things they were experiencing. It gave the workers hope.
>> But was it SCIENCE?
>>
>> When Charles Darwin submitted for publication the genius of his ability
>> to
>> observe certain phenomena in nature (especially where that nature was not
>> being manipulated directly, to a great extent, by humans, that was
>> science.
>>
>> However, as with the ideas of many of the world's great philosophers,
>> Darwin's legitimate and scientific observations and his EFFORTS to
>> interpret
>> the ways in which they work, gave form to some definitions and form to
>> some
>> logical INTERPRETATION of how those observations fit together. That was
>> science. (Science is never wrong in attempting to interpret, and to form
>> interpretations around models that are testable. All models that are
>> "science" lend themselves to being tested. All models that are science
>> are
>> TEMPORARY. They are used only so long as they stand up to all tests.
>>
>> When a scientific model butts up against new evidence and/or another
>> model
>> which is better tailored to fit the old known facts plus the new ones, it
>> is
>> discarded.
>>
>> NOT SO with myth arising around a scientific model because definitions
>> and
>> logic can be borrowed from it
>> and philosophical schools of thought, political agendas, economic
>> agendas,
>> social agendas which seek to piggyback onto them.
>>
>> "Darwinism" was not Darwin's ideas. It was Darwin's accurate
>> observations
>> and attempt at interpretations of them, as borrowed and monkied with by
>> far-out schools of philosophical thought. It got combined, as time went
>> on,
>> with ideas of philosophers such as Hegel, and Schopenhauer, and Friedrich
>> Nietzsche. It got cited by those with political agendas.
>>
>> To fully appreciate just how persuaded many people can be by ideas that
>> SEEM
>> to make perfect sense, there were in Hegel's heyday (Georg Wilhelm
>> Friedrich
>> Hegel) an enormous number of uneducated and scholarly, alike, who were
>> totally persuaded by his grossly simplistic teleology in which EVERYTHING
>> that happens in science our out, could be boiled down to thesis,
>> antithesis,
>> synthesis (with each synthesis then becoming the new synthesis). No
>> scientist could take that and test it. It just seemed to a lot of people
>> to
>> make sense. You couldn't DO anything with it. It just simplified
>> everything to the point that anybody could explain anything and
>> everything.
>> Its just synthesis, antithesis, synthesis. Got it? Duhhhhhhh. Yep.
>> That's right!
>>
>> But, anyhow, the influence of Darwin's observations and efforts to
>> interpret
>> them (which is good science) got borrowed and mixed in with ideas of
>> Hegel,
>> Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauer, August Compt, Friedrich Nietzsche, and
>> definitions resulted, and logic wherewith to manipulate them... and lots
>> of
>> pessimistic, bitter,
>> nihilistic, sociopathic, angry, resentful, frustrated people heard in the
>> result something that made sense to them. One could mouth off the dogma,
>> drop the right names, quote a quote here and there, and it all fit
>> together... and it became something loosely known as Social Darwinism.
>>
>> Duhhhhhh. Yep. That's right!
>>
>> But was it SCIENCE?
>>
>> IS it science?
>>
>> Or does it simply fit in with some people's need to try to make sense of
>> their feelings about things. Does it merely provide some psychological
>> need
>> among people to whom it "sounds" good, and fills a psychological need,
>> and
>> justifies their attitudes about some things.
>>
>> And, does it just provide some writers with something to tell people who
>> want to hear it? Does it give managers of people who provide a product
>> or a
>> service that seems to make simple sense of something far more complex
>> than
>> the average non-scientifically-skeptical, non-rigorous questioner, likes
>> to
>> grab onto and spout out as the explanation for something that otherwise
>> is
>> too complex to grasp?
>>
>> Is Social Darwinism SCIENCE?
>>
>> Science does not try to force facts to fit ideas. It seeks ever better
>> and
>> better interpretations to fit facts. It does not seek to establish a
>> simplistic model and shape reason to it. It seeks new and more accurate
>> information. It seeks to punch holes in old interpretations and refine
>> or
>> replace them with interpretations (models).
>>
>> For those incapable of, or unwilling to engage in, the expression of
>> statements clear and precise, and capable of being tested in such a way
>> as
>> to rule them in, or rule them out... there is always the Hegelian
>> teleology.
>> All one has to do is say, "What happened here is a matter of thesis,
>> antithesis, synthesis. And that explains EVERYTHING ! Ain't I
>> brilliant?
>>
>> Or if one wants to memorize a simplistic philosophical of economics, he
>> can
>> memorize Karl Marx's writings.
>> Or for a little more complexity than that, one can throw in a little
>> Friedrich Engel, or some Mao Tse Tung.
>>
>> Or, one can answer just about any social question using some offshoot of
>> Social Darwinism.
>>
>> Very convenient.
>>
>> But is it SCIENCE?
>>
>> If so, it can be put in crystal clear statements, which can be tested.
>> Results of the tests can predict -- if not on a 1:1 cause and effect
>> basis,
>> then on SOME statistical ratio, with limits and functions unambiguous.
>>
>> Of course, too, if one wishes to seek to interpret things beyond the
>> current
>> facts, in order to develop a reasonable working hypothesis to use in
>> developing questions to be answered by specific tests, that is
>> scientifically sound, PROVIDED one makes clear distinctions between that
>> which is of the nature of hard evidence and specific outcomes of specific
>> tests, on the one hand, and that which is conjecture still remaining to
>> be
>> tested and ruled in conclusively, or ruled out conclusively, as soon as
>> that
>> can be accomplished.
>>
>> g
>>
>>
>


.

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