Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA17164 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:20:46 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745BCE@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia? Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 15:19:27 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Well, without getting too embroiled into a philosophical debate about it, I
think the contention lay in "why" questions that are about intention and
purpose, rather than causality.
After all 'why did the universe begin?' is not necessarily the same question
as 'how did the universe begin?' or 'what caused the universe to begin?',
because it implies purpose (doesn't it?).
So, say, asking why natural selection uses genes would be a question aimed
at motivations/intentions/purposes.
That's not to say that one shouldn't use 'why' in the causal sense.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Scott Chase
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2001 2:35 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia?
>
>
>
>
> >From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> >To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> >Subject: RE: DNA Culture .... Trivia?
> >Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 11:32:12 -0000
> >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >
> >I'm aware, and have said before, that science can't really answer 'why'
> >questions, so that was a mistake. I guess it was prompted by Bill's
> >implication that other disciplines have the answers that memetics seeks.
> >Those answers, are indeed answers to 'how' questions.
> >
> >
> And I thought evolutionary biology was concerned wih "Why?" questions.
> Harvard evolutionist Ernst Mayr must have misled me when he said that
> "Why?" questions assumed scientific status via Darwin (see Mayr's _This is
> Biology: the Science of the Living World_. 1997. Cambridge, Massachusetts,
> p.116). John Alcock must be similarly misleading in his book _Animal
> Behavior: an Evolutionary Approach_ (1993. Sinauer Associates, Inc,
> Sunderland, Massachusetts) when he outlines how versus why questions in
> chapter 1. Alcock says (p. 2): "Why questions ask *why* the animal has
> evolved the proximate mechanisms that cause it to perform an activity."
>
> Thus, ultimate causes (with "why" questions) relate to proximate causes
> (with "how" questions). "How" is concerned with physiology and
> developmental processes, where "why" is concerned with
> historical/evolutionary matters. The distinction is as important as that
> between ontogeny and phylogeny.
>
>
>
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