Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA10729 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 14 Nov 2000 23:50:20 GMT Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 15:47:14 -0800 Message-Id: <200011142347.PAA15042@mail2.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.104 (Entity 4.116) X-Originating-Ip: [209.240.220.222] From: "Scott Chase" <hemidactylus@my-deja.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Tests show a human side to chimps Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk('binary' encoding is not supported, stored as-is)
>Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2000 13:46:17 +0000
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Tests show a human side to chimps
>From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>On Fri, Nov 10, 2000 at 09:03:51AM -0000, Vincent Campbell wrote:
>>
>> I should have included the
>> point that's been made by many scientists, that the problem is that science
>> can't answer 'why' questions, it can only (try and) answer 'how' questions,
>> e.g. how did the universe begin is a very different question to why did it
>> begin, and of course most scientists don't care about why questions very
>> much as a result.
>
>Scientists are people, too. I don't see why they shouldn't have the
>same concerns as everyone else. However, I suspect that scientists,
>like philosophers, tend to be more analytical than most people, and
>therefore realise that some of these questions are inherently meaningless.
>I'm surprised you don't share that view. That's not to say whatever
>stimulates such questions should be ignored, just that these demands
>must be satisfied by some other means. "Why..." can only legitimately
>be asked about human actions. If anyone asks it about anything else,
>then they will have to clarify their thinking, work out what they really
>want to know, what their problem actually is, before any progress is
>possible.
>
>> But the evidence for most people continuing to ask why
>> questions is all around us, and is inherent in philosophy (there I used it
>> again!).
>
>Of course everyone asks "why questions". But I doubt that many ask
>them at the high level of abstraction you've been using ("...most of
>all we want to know why"). Seems to me a small minority like to think
>they're speaking for the majority in this, as in so many other things.
>It's certainly only a very small minority of contemporary Western
>philosophers who concern themselves with such (IMHO silly) questions.
>
I guess evolutionary biologists must ask pretty silly darn questions then or I've learned a different connotation for how versus why than everyone else here.
The study of evolution as an historical process involves the asking of why questions. The study of physiology or molecular biology or developmental biology for the most part is concerned with how questions. Ernst Mayr (an evolutionary biologist with interests in philosophy) has written on this proximate (how) versus ultimate (why) dichotomy.
Scott
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