Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id KAA11899 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 15 Nov 2000 10:19:08 GMT Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 09:47:54 +0000 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Tests show a human side to chimps Message-ID: <20001115094754.A10575@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <200011142347.PAA15042@mail2.bigmailbox.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <200011142347.PAA15042@mail2.bigmailbox.com>; from hemidactylus@my-deja.com on Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 03:47:14PM -0800 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 03:47:14PM -0800, Scott Chase wrote:
> >From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk>
> >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.
"Ultimate", yes. "Real" why questions are teleological: to ask why
something occurred is to ask for what purpose it was done, which only
makes sense when we're using the intentional stance: when we're supposing
there was a do-er with a purpose. Or to put it another way, why questions
are an example of the intentional stance. (Or perhaps the design stance,
but that depends upon the intentional stance.) Now, the application
of the intentional stance to evolution is something about which much
has been written, but I think there's a fairly general concensus that,
though it is obviously very tempting, in fact why questions in this
context are best viewed as disguised how questions. Eg: why did we evolve
such big brains? Translation: what about big brains, in the context in
which they evolved, was adaptive. OK, that's "what" rather than "how",
but you know what I mean. I hope?
-- Robin Faichney robin@reborntechnology.co.uk=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 15 2000 - 10:20:57 GMT