Is depression an evolved adaptation?: envoi

October 22, 2010 • 3:10 pm

Several months ago I wrote a piece for The Psychiatric Times criticizing the idea that clinical depression was an evolved mental adaptation.  I concentrated on the “adaptive rumination hypothesis” of Andrews and Thomson, which posits that the syndrome of depression actually helps people solve knotty life problems.  Andrews and Thomson suggest, then, that becoming clinically depressed in certain situations was reproductively advantageous in our ancestors, and may still be so.

Andrews and Thomson have now responded in the journal with a piece called “Coyne battles Darwin, many other evolutionary biologists—and himself,” and if you’re following these things you might have a look.  It’s curious how they defend depression as so obviously adaptive.  Using their logic, one could judge any mental disorder as an adaptation promoted by natural selection in our ancestors.

I won’t say anything more since I’m preparing a response for the journal.

Footwear for the well-dressed scientist: day 5

October 22, 2010 • 11:43 am

What better way to bring Boot Week to a rousing close, my little galliforms, than to wear a pair of boots so outré that they’ll pep up the dreariest day in the lab, and turn the heads of even the most jaded scientist?  And for those who invoke sexual selection as a major impetus for boot wearing, here’s your proof: an over-the-top pair of semi-custom peacock boots from the hippest of all outfits, Rocketbuster, in El Paso (financial support provided by The New Republic).

When I asked for this design, there was an audible groan, for the stitching here is extremely time-consuming.  Each boot has four peacock feathers, and each is sewn by hand—with a sewing machine, to be sure, but one that is hand-guided.  Check this out:

These are not everyday boots, mi panecillos, but Sunday go-to-meeting* best, appropriate for the Footwear Grand Finale.

 

*this is metaphorical, of course

Methodological naturalism: does it exclude the supernatural?

October 22, 2010 • 8:23 am

Over the past week or so we’ve had a bit of to-and-fro about whether there is any evidence that could in principle count as supporting the existence of gods.  My answer of “yes” seems to be a minority view, but it’s true in the sense that yes, I would indeed believe—provisionally—in gods or supernatural forces if I encountered certain types of evidence.

I’m not going to defend my opinion in detail here, but I do want to dispel the accusation, leveled by The Great Decider among others, that that view is not shared by serious philosophers.  For the many of you who appear really engaged by this debate, I urge you to read a new paper in Foundations of Science by Maarten Boudry and two colleagues from the Department of Philosophy at Ghent University  (you can download it either here or here).  I’d also urge you not to pass judgment on Boudry et al. from my brief post here: their manuscript merits reading in entirety.

Methodological naturalism (“MN”) is the commitment of scientific investigation in practice to studying only naturalistic causes and explanations.  Boudry et al. observe, though, that there are really two types of MN:

Intrinsic methodological naturalism (IMN) is the a priori philosophical commitment to not even consider supernatural explanations (see the authors’ definition of “supernatural” below).  As Boudry et al. state in a forthcoming paper, under IMN “science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue.”  This is the view expressed by people like Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, and Rob Pennock. It also appears to be the official position of the National Center for Science Education and the semi-official position of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.

Provisional (or pragmatic) methodological naturalism (PMN),“a provisory and empirically grounded commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations, which in principle is revocable by extraordinary empirical evidence.” As the authors note:

According to this conception, MN did not drop from thin air, but is just the best methodological guideline that emerged from the history of science (Shanks 2004; Coyne 2009; Edis 2006), in particular the pattern of consistent
success of naturalistic explanations. Appeals to the supernatural have consistently proven to be premature, and science has never made headway by pursuing them. The rationale for PMN thus excludes IMN: if supernatural explanations are rejected because they have failed in the past, this entails that, at least in some sense, they might have succeeded. The fact that they didn’t is of high interest and shows that science does have a bearing on the question of the supernatural.

I’m a proponent of PMN, of course; others who seem to agree are Victor Stenger and Richard Dawkins.  P. Z. Myers and the others named above go with IMN.  Boudry et al. go on to claim that IMN is “philosophically indefensible.”

Of course much of this hinges on what you see as the definition of “the supernatural.” (I’d recommend reading Russell Blackford’s analyses of this slippery term here and here.)  Here is Boudry et al.’s definition:

. . . we propose to define ‘supernatural’ as referring to any phenomenon which has its basis in entities and processes that transcend the spatiotemporal realm of impersonal matter and energy described by modern science (for a similar approach, see Stenger 2008, pp. 14–16).

Here’s an example they give of a “supernatural” phenomena that could be studied by science:

. . . suppose the RCT [randomized controlled trial] in American Heart Journal turned out to confirm the hypothesis of therapeutic efficacy of intercessory prayer.  Moreover, suppose that further experimental work following this demonstration, which would arguably mark a complete revolution in science, indicated that this form of supernatural causation is predictable because it exhibits certain regularities. For instance, it works only with prayers officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, only if the ill person is baptised by a Catholic priest, etc. Though it may be ridiculous to speculate that anything of the sort would ever happen, as no alleged case of miraculous healing has even been authenticated scientifically, if it would, there is no obvious reason why the scientific enterprise would immediately and entirely collapse.  The fact that some prayers actually do help people recover would admittedly cause a complete metaphysical revolution in science (imagine the enthusiasm of theologians), but if the range of action of this supernatural power turned out to be restricted, why would it endanger the rest of our scientific endeavours?

Using this definition, they show that the most common arguments for IMN—those used by the NCSE and others—are philosophically weak.  It’s simply not kosher to say, as does the NCSE that “science has nothing to say about the supernatural.”

The authors also assert that, if you’re philosophically consistent, refuting things like intelligent design under the IMN requires only this dismissal:  “we can’t even scientifically discuss or debate this issue because there is no empirical evidence that bears on the supernatural.”  That’s not the way scientists—and the NCSE—attack creationism, of course.  They take a Designer seriously an an explanation, and then show that the evidence better supports the alternative of evolution.  If you’re an adherent of IMN, why bother?

That in fact seems to be the sentiment of many who are posting on this point. The definition of a god is claimed to be so slippery, so nebulous, that it shouldn’t even be considered as something scientists should debate. But doesn’t that argument also apply to a creationist Designer—or an Intelligent Designer?  After all, how do we know what people mean by an “intelligent Designer”? Without a precise definition of “intelligence” and an explication of how an intelligent Designer should behave, can’t we just wave away the problem without argument?  I would agree with Boudry et al. that even given the absence of a precise specification of “god”, one can still use science to study the supernatural.

The authors also note that IMN can be and has been used as prop for accomodationism:

Elsewhere (Boudry 2009 [reference below]) we have demonstrated that the principle of IMN is also an ill-advised attempt to reconcile science and religion. By excluding the supernatural from science by philosophical fiat, IMN has been grist to the mill of anti-evolutionists intent on accusing scientists of philosophical prejudice and dogmatism. To this end, they have exploited some of the specific philosophical weaknesses discussed in this paper. In our view, the conception of PMN salvages these philosophical problems and provides a more accurate picture of the proper role and rationale of science’s naturalistic methodology.

Do go read the paper, as I’m sure that my precis leaves out important points.

_______

Boudry, M., S. Blancke and J. Braeckman.  2010. How not to attack intelligent design creationism: philosophical misconceptions about methodological naturalism.  Foundations of Science (online) DOI 10.1007/s10699-010-9178-7

Boudry, M. (2009). Methodological naturalism as an intrinsic property of science: Grist to the Mill of intelligent design theory. Paper presented at the conference “150 years after origin: Biological, historical and philosophical perspectives”, November 2009, Toronto.  [JAC: this talk is now a manuscript that is submitted for publication].

Secular ethics classes a success in Oz

October 22, 2010 • 5:59 am

I reported a while back that ten public schools in New South Wales, a state where by law the students have a weekly hour of “special religious education” (SRE), were trying out classes in secular ethics as an opt-in alternative. I noted, many Christians didn’t like this at all—they claimed the classes drew people away from Jesus.  Too bad, because the government has just deemed the experiment a success.  You can download the 101-page government-commissioned report at the site (check out Appendix 2).

Reading the report, the education minister concluded that “The independent evaluation found high levels of engagement among students when discussing ethical issues and that it enabled them to discuss and understand the principles of ethical decision-making.  It also found that the course met the aim of introducing students to the language and nature of ethics and ethical issues.”

In response to “criticisms from religious groups” (p. 14), the report notes dryly:

In evaluating the course materials an effort has been made to consider the philosophical background and the pedagogical approach on which the course is based. The field of Moral Philosophy has a two and a half thousand- year history and a logically rigorous methodology; the ethical inquiry approach has been employed widely for three decades by philosophers concerned to introduce philosophy (including ethics and logic) to the broader community. These are philosophers who decry relativism.

The report concludes:

The call for a secular ethics-based complement to SRE in NSW schools is not without precedent, and there is evidence here that secular ethics and SRE can exist respectfully side by side. In this evaluation an attempt has been made to assess the extent to which the ten week ethics pilot provides an appropriate model for an ethics-based complement to Scripture, and to do so on the basis of rational argument and empirical evidence. Further decisions rest with the Minister.

Go Minister!  One small step for Australia, one great leap for mankind.

h/t: Russell Blackford at Metamagician

NYT discusses politics of global warming, ignores facts

October 21, 2010 • 6:00 pm

A front-page article in today’s New York Times discusses the strong tendency of Tea Party members to deny the existence of global warming. The statistics are pretty alarming: while 49% of American see global warming as an environmental problem that is currently affecting the world, only 14% of Tea Party supporters feel this way.  And, of course, there’s the effect of religion (Tea Partiers are often allied with conservative Christianity):

“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.” . .

“They’re trying to use global warming against the people,” Ms. Deaton said. “It takes away our liberty.”

“Being a strong Christian,” she added, “I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.”

It’s a pretty good piece, and goes on to describe the unholy efforts of the oil and gas industries to combat global-warming legislation, as well as the strong tendency of Republicans to also deny there’s an issue (“Of the 20 Republican Senate candidates in contested races, 19 question the science of global warming and oppose any comprehensive legislation to deal with it, according to a National Journal survey.”)

But the piece is missing something. Nowhere in its contents will you find any indication of what the facts are. If Tea Partiers are denying a scientific contention, what’s the evidence that that contention is true?

It seems to me that presenting an article about the politics of what is really a scientific controversy demand at the minimum that the scientific consensus be describe. It’s like writing an article about how Tea Party and Republican candidates deny evolution without stating that evolution is a scientific fact.  Would it be too hard for the Times to add one sentence saying that “a large majority of climate scientists agree that global warming is a serious problem that’s affecting our environment now”?

I knew it

October 21, 2010 • 1:20 pm

Some denizen of Uncommon Descent who goes by vjtorley has collected several hundred articles giving proof of God’s existence, and commends the list to me and my skeptical readers.  And, wouldn’t you know it, among them is the case of a Spanish amputee whose leg was restored by God.

The clincher:

Recordings also show that the restored leg was the same one as that which had been amputated two and a half years before, for it could be reidentified through some bruises and scars that were there before the amputation. Also, the hole in the cemetery of the hospital of Zaragoza in which the leg had been buried was excavated and found empty.

My only beef is that God stopped doing this kind of stuff in the seventeeth century.

A new world’s longest cat!

October 21, 2010 • 10:16 am

It’s Stewie, a Maine Coon male from Reno, Nevada.  This tom is one long drink of water: he measures 48.5 inches from nose to tail tip—more than four feet!  It’s a new Guinness world record, and you can see a video of the official measurement here.

But is there exploitation in his future? Already Maru has appeared in a Fresh Step cat litter commercial, and now Stewie is poised for teh dosh:

Of Stewie’s future as a potential celebrity, Hendrickson said, “First and foremost, if Stewie doesn’t want to do something, we will not make him. We hope that Stewie can bring joy to others like he has brought to us.

“He really likes people, especially kids. We hope that maybe Stewie can visit classrooms to help awareness of animal welfare. We also would hope that he continues to be the great guy he is. But it wouldn’t hurt to see his picture on a bag of cat food. Or maybe sponsorships to cat shows. I think it would be great if Stewie was known worldwide. Mostly though, I hope he makes people smile.”

Heeere’s Stewie: