Carrol, I think that you are basically correct about how sociobiology is applied to human societies, but even here there are some broad hints we can draw from contrasts with the social organizations of mammals. Even so, these broad hints do not lead to theoretical models that can be applied with any certitude. But it does seem significant that humans are the only primate species with a relatively high level of male investment in caring for the young. This is why I said that some of the assumptions behind sociobiology and evolutionary psychology seem to me good starting hypotheses but no matter how much philosophers such as Dennett claim that such hypotheses have obtained theoretical depth, as far as I am concerned, they are just pounding on the table. But this is a long story.
On the other hand in studies of ants, bees and other social insects I think that we have moved beyond just-so stories and have wide range of support for sociobiological models. This is partially because there is a wide range of comparison between species and ecological niches, which allows for a lot of analysis (some of it mathematical) about the differences of insect social structure. In other words there is more than a sample of one.
And this brings us to another point. So many questions that evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists want to ask about humans are based on a sample of one. For instance only human beings, as far as I can see, develop institutional "corporate" structures. We have developed such structures, historically, at least since shortly after the "agricultural revolution." Given that there are no other species that have such institutional structures it is very hard to develop an evolutionary theory of how they are bounded by our biology.
Another problem is that homo sapiens sapiens have not been around that long and there is no indication, as far as I can see that we are a successful biological "experiment." If we destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons next year, leaving the world to bugs and bacteria, an imaginary observer would definitely say that human beings were a "dead end" from an evolutionary point of view. Maybe intelligence itself is a "dead-end." Who knows? I don't. The point here is that all of those adaptations that are touted by those who believe that they can trace back human psychological features to an evolutionary story about differential reproductive success, may in fact be maladaptive and harmful. Since homo sapiens sapiens have been around for maybe about 100,000 years, how are we to know? It is a blink of the eye.
As for Ted:
>
On 5/30/06, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
> It's true, as I said, that Marx's ontological ideas are logically
> incompatible with the scientific materialist ontology dominant in
> science, so you can't make sense of them in terms of the latter
> ontology.
>
To the extent that scientists make ontological assumptions it is a matter of pragmatic practice. Some scientists try to "philosophize" their assumptions, and as far as I am concerned such business does not have much to do with what scientists actually do and with how scientific theories and models actually work or don't work. All scientific theories are extremely narrow in what they explain. Those philosophers and scientists who claim more are simply mistaken. You may say what scientists do is based on "scientific materialist ontology" if you wish, but it doesn't make what you say about Marx or science, or "self-determinism" at all relevant to any conversation about evolution or sociobiology, either for or against.
Explain to me the relevance in plain language and we can go from there.
To the extent that the ontological issues you refer to are at the heart of Marx's view of history and evolution, (and I don't think that they are, but I am not willing to argue it, because it feels too much like Catholic School to me) to that extent Marx it is irrelevant to actually trying to find out about how the human species (and other species for that matter), live, "came about" in biological history, created their own ecological niches, "developed culture," and how they, in the course of history, built various complex societies with their own rules, institutions, etc. The fact is I think that Marx's own narrow insights into history, the emergence of society, class struggle, etc. survive almost any ontological point of view you might choose, except for a point of view that says you can't have any knowledge at all.
As for the notion of "self-determination" there is no way that it can be stated without paradox. This does not mean that such notions are "untrue," as I said before, but rather for the moment (and I think for always) notions such as "free will" and "self-determination" are beyond our capacities to define coherently or with theoretical depth.
Looking at the self-perception of "self-determination" from a point of view of evolutionary psychology might bring some interesting thoughts at the limits of possiblity. Here I think it might be interesting to do a thought experiment.
Ask yourself the following question: if, with our level of "self-reflection" we did not think of ourselves as the "authors" of our own actions, could we act at all? In other words, could a creature such as we are go on living if we thought of ourselves as wholly determined by outside forces? I think not. Such a creature would not exist, no matter if determinism, indeterminism, or self-determinism is true or not. In other words if you look at "self-determinism" as a null hypothesis, and try to think how creatures such as ourselves are constructed biologically and if they can life without a psychological notion that may be loosely defined as "free will" or "self-determination", one comes up with the answer that such a species would soon be extinct. Galen Strawson puts it this way: "This raises an interesting question: Is it true that any possible self-conscious creature that faces choices and is fully aware of the fact that it does so must experience itself as having strong free will, or as being radically self-determining, simply in virtue of the fact that it is a self- conscious agent (and whether or not it has a conception of moral responsibility)? It seems that we cannot live or experience our choices as determined, even if determinism is true. But perhaps this is a human peculiarity, not an inescapable feature of any possible self-conscious agent. And perhaps it is not even universal among human beings."
The funny thing is we actually have empirical evidence for the above. People who have suffered brain injuries or certain kinds of viruses sometimes loose the ability to "recognize" the movements of their limbs as "determined" by themselves. Other loose the sense that their body is their own body or that they themselves are recognizable as a self. Such individuals are unable to move in a normal way and sometimes are unable to move at all. There have been quite a few investigations into such phenomena, but my only point is that "self-determinination" if not true is probably a necessary "delusion" for evolutionary reasons.
Ted wrote:
> As Whitehead points out, "scientists motivated by the purpose of
> demonstrating there is no purpose in the universe make an interesting
> subject for study."
As for discussions of purpose in the universe one might as well be discussing whether there are "gods" or not. Again this is an issue that is irrelevant to whether Kropotkin was right or wrong in his "sociobiological" assumptions, whether Marx was right or wrong, or whether Engels basically "sociobiological" speculations were right or wrong. To the extent that anyone assumes a purpose to the universe, or no purpose to the universe, to that extent I don't see any relevance at all to the question at hand.
But you may say that there is purpose "in" the universe because I have a purpose in writing this email. Thus purpose exists somewhere "in" the universe." This is a just a definitional quibble. But to attribute purpose "to" the universe is completely incoherent.
We are not even sure what the "universe" is to any extent definable.
Jerry Monaco