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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Article by Brady (vandalized in "pinking shears" incident)
Message-ID: <500@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 20:45:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: psivax.500
Posted: Fri Jun  7 20:45:23 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 20:29:08 EDT
References: <533@petsd.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 78
Summary: 

In article <533@petsd.UUCP> cjh@petsd.UUCP (Chris Henrich) writes:
>  I looked the
>article up, and here is the full reference, the Abstract, and
>some notes on the content.
>
>Brady, R. H.
>(Associate Professor of Philosophy, Ramapo College, Mahwah,
>New Jersey 07430)
>Natural Selection and the Criteria By Which a Theory is
>Judged.
>Systematic Zoology 28(1979)600-621.
>
>Abstract:
>	.
>	.
>	.
>that the theory is not falsifiable in its operational form.
>Under examination, the operational forms of the concepts of
>adaptation and fitness turn out to be too indeterminate to be
>seriously tested, for they are protected by ad hoc additions
>drawn from an indeterminate realm.
End of Abstract

>Here is a redaction of some notes that I took, from reading
>the first parts of the paper.
>
>1. Tautology and causal explanation.
>   A theory is supposed to be an explanation of some facts.
>It must add something to the facts being explained.  A
>tautology is a theoretical-seeming statement which fails to do
>this.
>
>2. The purpose of the theory [of natural selection]
	.
	.
	.
>   Brady's verdict is (I think I am quoting accurately)
>"differential reproduction, or even differential mortality
>(which is closer to the original idea) has no explanatory
>power, but remains a datum to be explained."
>   
>___________________________
>
>   I am disappointed in Brady's article.  Much of his
>criticism of natural selection is really a criticism of
>biology, on these grounds:
>	it is different from philosophy;
>	it is difficult and complicated;
>	you have to go out there in the (gasp) real
>		world, and collect data.
>The alleged tautology of the theory of natural selection is an
>artifact of examining it outside of its context.
>   Brady never talks about speciation.  Nor does Bethell, nor
>the others whom Brady cites.  (In the cited passages, that
>is!)  So he misses the interesting point.  His statement that
>differential reproduction has no explanatory power is
>perverse:  he ignores what the evolutionists are trying to
>explain.
>
	Actually, I suspect there is another weakness in his paper
on the basis of the abstract and summary(and the source of the
article). I suspect that Brady is a member of the cladistic school
of taxonomy, or something thereto. The emphasis on "operational"
definitions is an indicator of an "ultra-reductionist" approach
to biology, which tries to reduce *all* biological definitions to
*directly* measurable variables. While this is entirely in physics,
where the concept is most widely applied, many doubt its
appropriateness in the field of biology.  His treatment of "tautology"
is also characteristic of this approach. Thus one of his basic
premises is an approach to biology which is questionable, and his
arguments, to the extent they depend on these definitions, are invalid
if you reject the "operationalist" biology he espouses.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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