Louis,
I've been meaning to ask both Ted and you this question. Why do you think that just because a person thinks that sociobiology or evolutionary psychology or for that matter quantum chemistry are possibly good scientific theories that, that person is necessarily believes in "determinism" in some broad sense? There is no necessary connection.
If people do make a connection it is the common human mistake (probably biologically endowed for good evolutionary reasons) of over-generalizing from a perceived pattern. Many non-scientists and scientists over-generalize and try to apply theoretical models beyond their limited testing grounds. Sometimes this leads to insights, often not. A good scientific theory will lay out "determinants' by necessity because unless it can explain, describe and some how "show cause" it will not be a a good scientific theory. This is simply the condition of theory making. Thus some people can be deluded into thinking that all science is "deterministic" (once again using the word in the broad sense that it is being used here). A scientific theory is not broadly deterministic but only narrowly so because it can only pick out small pieces of "the world" to describe. If the theoretical model matches what we are trying to describe, in an approximate and narrow way, as it does when sociobiology is used to describe social insects, then good for the theory. That is about all. What ever coincidence there is between our capacity to understand the world in theoretical terms and the actual working of the world (scare quotes assumed) is a biologically contingent fact of our cognitive capacity. Just because there is no other way for a theory to be constructed does not mean that the people constructing the theory can't see how narrow the theory is and how much it leaves out.
Part of what the any theory leaves out is any position on broader questions of "determinism", "indeterminism", or "self-determinism," "free will," etc. It is too bad for us that there is no theoretical knowledge on these subjects, only poetical intuition, and good story telling.
Ted said in another thread:
On 5/31/06, Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:
>So the answer to the following question:
> Is there a biological component in the unique human capacity to form
> relations of mutual recognition ?
> is "no" where, as in the following, you mean by "biological" not self-
> determined in the above sense.
I am not sure I understand what he is saying. If our capacities to make choices are not biological capacities then what are they? Where do they come from? Are we not biological in some very broad sense? Just because we cannot make a biological theory to describe what ever Ted is calling "self-determination" does not mean that whatever it is is something other than part of our brain/mind/body.
Again, none of you seem to actually want to take the time to explain what I see as not making sense in thinking through these questions.
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