On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Luke Weiger wrote:
> > CB: However, I believe it is true that Darwin did not demonstrate
> directly
> > that any trait of any species came about through natural selection. He
> > didn't prove that the tail of the giraffe evolved to swat flies. How could
> > he from fossils ? He speculated that. Or he didn't have any direct proof
> on
> > the selection process that resulted in the eye. He speculated. So
> inability
> > to directly show that "altruism" came about through natural selection in
> > humans is no different than the whole of Darwinism.
>
> Exactly. And some behavioral speculations are just as well-founded as any
> relating directly to anatomical features like hearts and hands. No one
> denies this until we start talking about people.
>
> -- Luke
Well, I for one think it's sloppy biology when biologists do it, just as it's sloppy psychology when psychologists do it. C'mon guys, this is Philosophy of Science 101: speculation is fine, it generates potentially useful theories. However, if there is no meaningful way to empirically test the speculation, we're not doing science. Thus making up a story about how X must have led to reproductive success in the past--whether X is a physical body part or a psychological trait--is interesting, but it's not really science.
Now, if an ethologist carefully observes multiple generations of a particular bird species and discovers that monogamous mating pairs tend to have better reproductive success, the speculation is at least to some degree empirically grounded, and it doesn't bug me as much as some goofball like Dawkins. Granted, contemporary studies don't directly demonstrate that evolutionary pressures on a trait existed in species history, but it's better than making up just-so stories and calling it a scientific theory.
Miles