University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2003 Dangerous Habits: Examining the Philosophical Baggage of Biological Research Massimo Pigliucci University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Pigliucci, Massimo, "Dangerous Habits: Examining the Philosophical Baggage of Biological Research. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2003. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2188 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Massimo Pigliucci entitled "Dangerous Habits: Examining the Philosophical Baggage of Biological Research." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Philosophy. Jonathan Kaplan, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Kathy Bohstedt, John Nolt, Daniel Simberloff Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Massimo Pigliucci entitled “Dangerous Habits: examining the philosophical baggage of biological research.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a Major in Philosophy. Jonathan Kaplan Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Kathy Bohstedt John Nolt Daniel Simberloff Acceptance for the Council: Anne Mayhew Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies (Original signatured are on file with official student records.) Dangerous Habits: Examining the Philosophical Baggage of Biological Research A dissertation presented for the Doctor of Philosophy degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Massimo Pigliucci May 2003 Acknowledgments None of this would have been possible without the help of many people, and I wish to single out a few for explicit thanks. First and foremost, my wife, Melissa Brenneman, to whom I solemnly promised that this was the last degree I would ever sought in my life. Then my advisor, colleague, and friend, Jonathan Kaplan. The colleagues who served on my committee, Kathy Bohstedt, John Nolt, and Dan Simberloff. My other philosophy teachers, Richard Aquila, Shari Clough, Sheldon Cohen, and Betsy Postow. And finally the members of my bio-lab, who have been very patient with me throughout this project: Josh Banta, Jeff Dole, and Norris Muth. ii Abstract Science is about conceptualizing the natural world in a way that can be understood by human beings while at the same time reflecting as much as possible what we can empirically infer about how the world actually is. Among the crucial tools that allow scientists to formulate hypotheses and to contribute to a progressive understanding of nature are the use of imagery and metaphors on the one hand, and the ability to assume certain starting points on which to build new avenues of inquiry on the other hand. The premise of this work is that, in the words of philosopher of science Daniel Dennett, “There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.” The purpose here is precisely to examine some of this philosophical baggage, and to see where such analysis may lead us. Obviously, it is not possible for a single project to take on science as a whole, or even an entire discipline such as physics, or ecology. Therefore, the core of this work is constituted by a series of eight case studies drawn from the field of evolutionary biology, with which I am particularly familiar as a practicing biologist. The hope is that combining expertise in both philosophy and science in one person, the resulting insights might be useful for the practicing scientist as well as because of their value as philosophical inquires. The dissertation is a combination of conceptual analysis and science criticism applied to specific questions in organismal biology, largely of an evolutionary nature, with the eight case studies grouped into three broad categories: I- Unexamined Baggage, II-Bad Habits, and III-Good and bad metaphors. iii Table of Contents Introduction. p. 1 Part I -- Unexamined baggage: p. 9 Chapter 1: Are ecology and evolutionary biology soft sciences? p. 12 Chapter 2: Genes “for” phenotypes: a Modern History view. p. 34 Chapter 3: On the concept of biological race and its applicability to humans. p. 73 Chapter 4: Species as family resemblance concepts: the (dis-)solution of the species problem? p. 92 Part II -- Bad habits: p. 109 Chapter 5: On hypothesis testing: a brief guide for the skeptic. p. 112 Chapter 6: Genotype-environment interactions and our understanding of the biological bases of human cognitive abilities. p. 135 Part III -- Metaphors: good and bad ones: p. 155 Chapter 7: Against the selfish gene. p. 157 Chapter 8: The fall and rise of Dr. Pangloss: adaptationism and the Spandrels paper 20+ years later. p. 174 Conclusion. p. 187 Literature Cited. p. 195 Vita. p. 233 iv List of Tables: Table 2.1, A checklist for genes “for.” p. 71 Table 4.1, Some of the major species concepts proposed so far, somedefinitions, and some relevant references. p. 96 Table 4.2, Some of the major themes dominating philosophical discussions of the species concepts. p. 98 v List of Figures: Figure 1.1, Two models of hypothesis testing. p. 25 Figure 2.1, The pennant / vestigial (and their heterozygote) reaction norms in Drosophila melanogsater. p. 55 Figure 4.1, The idea of “game” as a family resemblance, or cluster, concept. p. 103 Figure 4.2, The idea of “species” as a family resemblance, or cluster, concept. p. 104 Figure 5.1, The structure of hypothesis testing in a hypothetical experiment. p. 117 Figure 6.1, A hypothetical population with three genotypes characterized by distinct reaction norms along an environmental gradient. p. 146 Figure 6.2, Effect of nature (quality and stimulation properties of the environment) on “intelligence” (ability to avoid mistakes in mazes) in genetically distinct laboratory lines of rats. p. 151 vi List of Text Boxes: Box 1.1, A list of problems and conceptual issues common to psychological and evo-eco research, from a subset in Meehl (1978). p. 18 Box 1.2, Platt’s (1964) complains about bad practice in natural sciences. p. 22 Box 8.1, The object of the attack: according to Gould and Lewontin, the adaptationist program is characterized by the telling of stories involving natural selection, which account for the presence and particular forms of traits by reference to their hypothesized adaptive significance. p. 175 Box 8.2, Alternatives to adaptationism. p. 177 Box 8.3, On constraints vs. selection: which is the correct null hypothesis? p. 178 vii "There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination." —Daniel Dennett (Darwin's Dangerous Idea, 1995, p. 21) Introduction Science is about conceptualizing the natural world in a way that can be understood by human beings while at the same time reflecting as much as possible what we can empirically infer about how the world actually is. Conceptualization itself is a complex phenomenon that has been at the center of both philosophical (e.g., Margolis and Laurence 1999) and scientific (Fedlman 2000; Wolford et al. 2000) investigation. Be that as it may, among the crucial tools that allow scientists to formulate hypotheses and to contribute to a progressive understanding of nature (Kitcher 1995) are the use of imagery and metaphors on the one hand, and the ability to assume certain starting points on which to build new avenues of inquiry on the other hand. Assumptions, as well as visual and verbal metaphors, are an inescapable part not only of doing science, but of functioning as cognitive animals, and there is no suggestion to be found in this dissertation that we should avoid using such tools in either science or everyday life. However, it is one of the tasks of philosophy to continuously examine the soundness of the assumptions and metaphors that are used by other disciplines (Berlin 1979; Prawitz 1997), in order to provide a level of critical analysis often neglected by practitioners within a given field, too busy solving more specific problems to engage in meta-analyses. The premise of this work is that, in the words of philosopher of science Daniel 1 Dennett (1995), “There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination.” The purpose here is precisely to examine some of this philosophical baggage, and to see where such analysis may lead us. Obviously, it is not possible for a single project to take on science as a whole, or even an entire discipline such as physics, or ecology. Therefore, the core of what follows is constituted by a series of eight case studies drawn from the field of evolutionary biology, with which I am particularly familiar as a practicing biologist. The hope is that combining expertise in both philosophy and science in one person, the resulting insights might be useful for the practicing scientist as well as because of their value as philosophical inquires.