Re: [asa] Evolution - A Biological Law, a Social-Cultural Assumption

David C. said: * For example, I would say that societies, cultures, etc. do
show
non-cyclic change over time and can legitimately be said to evolve.*

The problem with this kind of comparison, I think, is that society changes
as a result of intentional human agency. This establishes a level of
causation that doesn't really have an analogue in biological evolution.

I like Bhaskar's critical realist notion of society (see his "The
Possibility of Naturalism"). Society is in some ways a "given" to each
person who confronts it; we do not totally construct social reality, and
social reality has its own ontology. Yet, people can act to transform
society, and therefore society is also a social construction. But I don't
think we should confuse this transitive dimension of society with the sort
of change that happens in biological evolution -- otherwise we end up with
silly reductionist ideas like memes. Human society is an emergent
property that isn't reducible to any non-teleological structure.

On Jan 11, 2008 3:49 PM, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:

> > TE's have much to give in concession because they have intertwined their
> > theologies with evolutionary biology so deeply that they find it hard to
> > admit there is ANYTHING that does not evolve (cf. discussion on ASA list
> > last year). In this situation, aside from safely positing that the
> Creator
> > doesn't evolve, they are just as guilty as E.O. Wilson, D. Dennett, R.
> > Dawkins, S. Blackmore, M. & S. Harris and S. Pinker of elevating
> evolution
> > into a world-view that is beyond its theoretical province. The REAL
> problem
> > is that TEs and ECs have (perhaps unwittingly) intertwined their
> theologies
> > with social-cultural evolution as well.
>
> This conflates multiple questions: A) do things evolve? [includes
> issues of defining evolution] B) to what extent is biological
> evolution a useful analogy or governed by mathematically similar
> patterns in comparison with other types of "evolution"? C) in the case
> of social-cultural evolution, to what extent are the patterns dictated
> or influenced by biological evolution?
>
> For example, I would say that societies, cultures, etc. do show
> non-cyclic change over time and can legitimately be said to evolve.
> Some aspects of social and cultural evolution are amenable to analyses
> similar to those applied to biological evolution, though others are
> not. Many aspects of social and cultural evolution are influenced to
> some degree by biological evolution, but very little is determined by
> it or adequately explainable, even at a physical level, solely by
> biological considerations (the only examples immediately coming to
> mind being the physical and physiological properties of humans, which
> place fairly wide but relatively fixed constraints on our behavior).
>
> Another example comes from literature. Analyzing different
> manuscripts of an ancient document (such as the Bible) can make use of
> techniques similar to those used to analyze evolutionary
> relationships, perhaps even using the same computer programs. In both
> cases, a single original has been transmitted in imperfect copies. we
> can use those changes to reconstruct the pattern of relationships
> between the available samples and to try to reconstruct the most
> likely original. However, apart from that there is little connection
> between biological evolution and manuscript copying.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>
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Received on Fri Jan 11 16:21:21 2008