Critic Paper: Historical Science, Over and Underdetermined: A Study of Darwin's Inference of Origins
By Aviezer Tucker
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
July 18, 2011
SUMMARY
Tucker analyzes the method of how Darwin inferred the origin of species from his major works. Two philosophical theses are highlighted: overdetermination and undetermination. Tucker discloses Darwin’s three-consecutive-stage-approach in inferring origins. First, Darwin inferred that homologies have common cause rather than separate cause, a case of overdetermination. Next, he developed possible causal nets to infer the origin of species sharing common cause, but acknowledged this approach to be an interplay between over and underdetermination depending upon the causal models. Third, Darwin avoided overdetermination in inferring the character traits of the ancestor species implying that some information might have been lost overtime such that the current evidences are insufficient to characterize the traits of the origin. Based on this case, Tucker concludes that inferences in historical sciences proceed from overdetermination to underdetermination, an approach that is also true in the inference of ancestral languages.
CRITIC
Debates about the process of how knowledge is grounded in science did not bother me until I went in the graduate school and was asked to write a critic paper. In fact, all I know is that science is ‘science’, without distinguishing between historical and experimental. I have assumed that evolution has come to develop as a body of knowledge because of evidences supporting it. No more, no less. At first, I hardly comprehend what’s the debate about the truthfulness of scientific information generated by historical scientists. After all, they are doing science.
Tucker’s paper enabled me to discriminate between ‘what is’ from ‘what is not’ in science. I realized that experimental scientists are the ones doing the Baconian scientific method reliant on hardcore empiricism. I did not have any idea that historical scientists are waiving this time-honored method in favor of observations, evidences available and rational thinking in order to infer the origin of a certain thing . Now, it has been made clear to me why historical scientists are always placed on a hot seat.
Let me make Darwin’s inferential analysis simpler, at least in the context I am familiar with. It is easy to claim that we have some semblance because we are relatives by blood (overdetermination), let alone the look-alikes. The next question would be ‘how in the world have we become relatives?’ So we trace our genealogies. Depending on the availability of information, we speculate (interplay of over and underdetermination). Granting that our common ancestor has been traced based on the most plausible model, we may infer phenotypic traits but to determine the character traits of our common ancestor is another story (underdetermination).
That is how I understand Darwin’s experience in inferring the origin of species. It is obvious that as the process of inference goes deeper, tracing the common ancestor is becoming unlikely overdetermined .
That the past is overdetermined by its effects may sound an overstatement. But that is how we usually reason, ‘like begets like.’ We tend to imply correlation with causation, which should not always be. However, I have some problem with Cleland’s attempt to connect overdetermination with ‘radiative asymmetry’ like waves spreading outwards than inwards as time progresses. There may be the spreading away of waves, but we have learned in Physics that overtime these waves will lose energy.
It is on this premise that Turner’s thesis of underdetermination of the past due to information decay appealed to me. He cited the law of entropy as supporting evidence to his thesis. Indeed the amount of disorder in the universe tends to increase. The fossils may provide clues to the past or even preserve some important information as Cleland would argue, but still they are not excluded from the action of entropy.
It was interesting to note that Darwin’s approach has been found to be also workable in the inference of ancestral languages. But my comments are rather trivial. I understand better what Tucker pointed out as homologies with common cause when I came across with some typos like “pronounciation” and “undertermined” in the paper. I am certain that these unlikely occurrences have common cause: ‘error in coding’, and that’s an overdetermination, as with the mutations that occur in our genes.
Given the merits of these two theses in the historical sciences, I cannot settle for Tucker’s cliché that ‘the truth lies somewhere in the middle.’ I want the debate to keep going.
REFERENCES
Cleland, Carol E. (2002). "Methodological and Epistemic Differences Between Historical Science and Experimental Science," Philosophy of Science 69, pp. 474-496. Retrieved November 30, 3011, Available at http://spot.colorado.edu/~cleland/articles/Cleland.PS.Pdf
Psillos, Stathis (2008). “Review of Derek Turner’s Making Prehistory: Historical Science and the Scientific Realism Debate” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Retrieved December 1, 2011 at http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23501-making-prehistory-historical-science-and-the-scientific-realism-debate/
The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
July 18, 2011
SUMMARY
Tucker analyzes the method of how Darwin inferred the origin of species from his major works. Two philosophical theses are highlighted: overdetermination and undetermination. Tucker discloses Darwin’s three-consecutive-stage-approach in inferring origins. First, Darwin inferred that homologies have common cause rather than separate cause, a case of overdetermination. Next, he developed possible causal nets to infer the origin of species sharing common cause, but acknowledged this approach to be an interplay between over and underdetermination depending upon the causal models. Third, Darwin avoided overdetermination in inferring the character traits of the ancestor species implying that some information might have been lost overtime such that the current evidences are insufficient to characterize the traits of the origin. Based on this case, Tucker concludes that inferences in historical sciences proceed from overdetermination to underdetermination, an approach that is also true in the inference of ancestral languages.
CRITIC
Debates about the process of how knowledge is grounded in science did not bother me until I went in the graduate school and was asked to write a critic paper. In fact, all I know is that science is ‘science’, without distinguishing between historical and experimental. I have assumed that evolution has come to develop as a body of knowledge because of evidences supporting it. No more, no less. At first, I hardly comprehend what’s the debate about the truthfulness of scientific information generated by historical scientists. After all, they are doing science.
Tucker’s paper enabled me to discriminate between ‘what is’ from ‘what is not’ in science. I realized that experimental scientists are the ones doing the Baconian scientific method reliant on hardcore empiricism. I did not have any idea that historical scientists are waiving this time-honored method in favor of observations, evidences available and rational thinking in order to infer the origin of a certain thing . Now, it has been made clear to me why historical scientists are always placed on a hot seat.
Let me make Darwin’s inferential analysis simpler, at least in the context I am familiar with. It is easy to claim that we have some semblance because we are relatives by blood (overdetermination), let alone the look-alikes. The next question would be ‘how in the world have we become relatives?’ So we trace our genealogies. Depending on the availability of information, we speculate (interplay of over and underdetermination). Granting that our common ancestor has been traced based on the most plausible model, we may infer phenotypic traits but to determine the character traits of our common ancestor is another story (underdetermination).
That is how I understand Darwin’s experience in inferring the origin of species. It is obvious that as the process of inference goes deeper, tracing the common ancestor is becoming unlikely overdetermined .
That the past is overdetermined by its effects may sound an overstatement. But that is how we usually reason, ‘like begets like.’ We tend to imply correlation with causation, which should not always be. However, I have some problem with Cleland’s attempt to connect overdetermination with ‘radiative asymmetry’ like waves spreading outwards than inwards as time progresses. There may be the spreading away of waves, but we have learned in Physics that overtime these waves will lose energy.
It is on this premise that Turner’s thesis of underdetermination of the past due to information decay appealed to me. He cited the law of entropy as supporting evidence to his thesis. Indeed the amount of disorder in the universe tends to increase. The fossils may provide clues to the past or even preserve some important information as Cleland would argue, but still they are not excluded from the action of entropy.
It was interesting to note that Darwin’s approach has been found to be also workable in the inference of ancestral languages. But my comments are rather trivial. I understand better what Tucker pointed out as homologies with common cause when I came across with some typos like “pronounciation” and “undertermined” in the paper. I am certain that these unlikely occurrences have common cause: ‘error in coding’, and that’s an overdetermination, as with the mutations that occur in our genes.
Given the merits of these two theses in the historical sciences, I cannot settle for Tucker’s cliché that ‘the truth lies somewhere in the middle.’ I want the debate to keep going.
REFERENCES
Cleland, Carol E. (2002). "Methodological and Epistemic Differences Between Historical Science and Experimental Science," Philosophy of Science 69, pp. 474-496. Retrieved November 30, 3011, Available at http://spot.colorado.edu/~cleland/articles/Cleland.PS.Pdf
Psillos, Stathis (2008). “Review of Derek Turner’s Making Prehistory: Historical Science and the Scientific Realism Debate” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Retrieved December 1, 2011 at http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23501-making-prehistory-historical-science-and-the-scientific-realism-debate/
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