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So do the "obvious evolutionary explanations" by so-called experts, by the way. A useful exercise is to consider how you could possibly have an evolutionary exp
by astazangasta 8y ago
So do the "obvious evolutionary explanations" by so-called experts, by the way. A useful exercise is to consider how you could possibly have an evolutionary explanation that is NOT a just-so story. It seems impossible to me; there is really nothing in our epistemology to justify our stories about evolution besides inductive inference, a.k.a a just-so story.
- jm__87 8y agoI would think if the story holds across all cultures over time, it is pretty good evidence it is not just a just-so story.
- astazangasta 8y agoMaybe, or maybe you just insufficiently observed the variability across cultures or time, or ignored it, or pretended the outliers don't contradict your cherished thesis, or pretended your sample set is more representative than it is, etc., etc. Anyway "pretty good" evidence seems about the right standard for something to be labeled a just-so story.
- jm__87 8y agoConsensus is the best you can ask for with evolutionary stories. There is no equivalent of a mathematical proof in that field. Do you think we shouldn't bother with this field of study at all since we cannot definitively prove something?
- astazangasta 8y agoIn a world where the worst sort of racist dogmas proceed from exactly this sort of reasoning, and where natural selection is often made to stand in the place of God ("the fittest survive"), maybe we should.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jm__87 8y agoWell, I was going to make a comment that this sort of "just so story" logic is prevalent amongst those who are anti-evolution (e.g. creationists) and would rather see the idea die, but it seems I do not need to.
- astazangasta 8y agoHaha.. Nope, I'm not a creationist. I do have a Phd mostly earned studying evolutionary biology, though (sequence conservation). Thats why I detest this form of logic so, I understand better than most how limited our insight into adaptive cause is. When I started grad school I imagined I would be able to explain all of what made humans special by examining human-chimp divergence. It didn't take too long to disabuse me of that notion.
- lordnacho 8y agoYou could look at what the explanation predicts about the populations involved and their effect on the fossil record. I'm not saying this is always done, but rather it shows such theories are falsifiable in the sense of Popper.
- astazangasta 8y agoThis is in fact rarely done; the fossil record is sparse. In general data on the evolutionary background is sparse. Let's take an example I have been contemplating lately: pruny fingers. When my baby goes in the water, his fingerpads and toes turn wrinkly. There is a supposition, part of the "Aquatic Ape Theory" that is a famous example of an evolutionary just-so story, that this is an adaptation to allow better grips in the water. Sounds good to me - but how could we test this claim? We could start with physical tests (does grip actually improve when your fingers are pruney?), but we immediately run into trouble. A grip on what? In what sort of conditions? Did these conditions exist in the adaptive context that produced this phenotype? We have no idea. There might be rare circumstances where we can observe the coincidence of environmental and phenotypic isolation (e.g. cattle herders who are lactase persistent), but the vast majority of features will be lost against the general evolutionary background of our species (e.g. everything separating humand from chimps, both genetically and environmentally, is one confused ball). But even those rare cases are still inferential; the inference seems strong and parsimonious, but its still, at the end, "just so". We can never prove causality.