Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism

whitesickle@xxxxxxx wrote:
In case anybody thinks this issue isn't of relevance to s.b.e. note
that under this title are listed the ideas of Dawkins, Dennett, and
Pinker. All of these folks ideas have been posted on here before so it
is an appropriate topic. Informative perhaps all these people have
written on evolution. The impression is the subject of reductionism is
important to these men. According to the article, "Both Dennett and
Steven Pinker argue that too many people who are opposed to science use
the words "reductionism" and "reductionist" less to make coherent
claims about science than to convey a general distaste for the
endeavor." I think that is true. I think the key is not merely the
scientific methods used to produce evidence but how empirical evidence
is interpreted. Although science has been specifically accused of
reductionism it pervades society at all levels. To
reductionists/materialists there may be nothing unknowable to science
yet Einstein once stated the source of all science was the mysterious
(paraphrasing). And does anybody seriously think science will someday
know everything? How absurd and arrogant in this immense universe.
Notice how the term "scientific reductionism" is used instead of
rational analysis. Scientific reductionism is a form of metaphysical
idealogy.

Dawkins, Pinker, and Dennett are all reductionists. They don't take
criticisms of it seriously.
Smith's article "On Reductionism" was very cogent and his argument
appeared to rely on the anthropology of man and how science and other
forces have disconnected man from himself.

Michael Ragland


Reductionism is the opposite of emergence, defined nicely here:

"2.3 What is emergence ?"

"The appearance of a property or feature not previously observed
as a functional characteristic of the system. Generally, higher level
properties are regarded as emergent. An automobile is an emergent
property of its interconnected parts. That property disappears if the
parts are disassembled and just placed in a heap. There are three
aspects involved here. First is the idea of 'supervenience', this means
that the emergent properties will no longer exist if the lower level is
removed (i.e. no 'mystically' disjoint properties are involved).
Secondly the new properties are not aggregates, i.e. they are not just
the predictable results of summing part properties (for example when the
mass of a whole is just the mass of all the parts added together).
Thirdly there should be causality - thus emergent properties are not
epiphenomenal (either illusions or descriptive simplifications only).
This means that the higher level properties should have causal effects
on the lower level ones - called 'downward causation', e.g. an amoeba
can move, causing all its constituent molecules to change their
environmental positions (none of which however are themselves capable of
such autonomous trajectories). This implies also that the emergent
properties 'canalize' (restrict) the freedom of the parts (by changing
the 'fitness landscape', i.e. by imposing boundary conditions or
constraints)."

http://www.calresco.org/sos/sosfaq.htm#2.3

Note the important ideas of "downward causation" and "canalization".
Dawkins denies the importance of the organism, prefering to view it only
as a robotic container for selfish genes. Dennett and Pinker deny the
importance of "mind", viewing it only as the epiphenomenal by product of
basic neurological mechanisms. All three of them would deny the
existence of downward causation or canalization, or any autonomous
processes operating at levels higher than their favorite atomic levels.

Reductionism *should* be criticized. It is short sighted and
constipated scientific thinking.


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx


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Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Addressing Scientific Reductionism
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    (sci.bio.evolution)
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