Paul Feyerabend’s defense of astrology, part IV

Time to bring to a close this longer than expected (by me, when I started it!) mini-series on the fruitful exchange I’ve had recently in the pages of Social Epistemology with Ian Kidd, concerning Paul Feyerabend’s (in)famous “defense” of astrology and criticism of scientific dogmatism. (part I, part II, and part III here). This last entry will focus on my second response to Kidd, which has concluded our exchange, at the least so far.

Paul Feyerabend’s defense of astrology, part III

Let’s continue this mini-series (part I, part II) focused on a fruitful exchange I’ve had recently with Ian Kidd over at Social Epistemology, which began with his publication of a paper on Paul Feyerabend’s (in)famous defense of astrology. As you might recall, Feyerabend (and, for that matter, astronomer Carl Sagan) was upset at an anti-astrology manifesto published in 1975 by arch-skeptic Paul Kurtz and co-signed by 186 scientists. Feyerabend’s charge was that the scientists had done less homework, before signing onto the public document, than the Catholic Church when it wrote its witchcraft textbook, the Malleus Maleficarum, back in 1484. Kidd, in turn, defends Feyerabend arguing that he was criticizing the scientists in question for lacking the virtue of epistemic humility and engaging in the vice of dogmatism.

Paul Feyerabend’s defense of astrology, part II

We have began looking at the famous (or infamous, depending on who’s talking) episode of philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend’s “defense” of astrology, in response to an anti-astrology manifesto put forth by skeptic Paul Kurtz and co-signed by 186 scientists, back in 1975. This episode is the occasion for a recent paper by Ian Kidd, to which I have been invited to write a response by the journal Social Epistemology.

Paul Feyerabend’s defense of astrology, part I

Paul Feyerabend was the enfant terrible of 1960s philosophy of science. His most famous book, Against Method argued that science is a quintessentially pragmatic enterprise, with scientists simply using or discarding what does and does not work, meaning that there is no such thing as the scientific method. It’s not for nothing that he was referred to as a methodological anarchist. (Incidentally, the new edition of the book, with introduction by Ian Hacking, is definitely worth the effort.)

What is a gene, and what is it for?

The gene is a fundamental concept in biology, and it has been since Mendel introduced it in the late 19th century, unbeknownst to Darwin, who was just at the same time looking for a theory of heredity, flirted with Lamarckism, and tiene came up with his own, incorrect, notion of blended inheritance.

Mendel’s work was rediscovered in 1900 (it’s bad for one’s academic career when one publishes in obscure journals and agrees to become an administrator, as the Augustinian friar did), and ever since it has been a crucial component of our understanding of biology. But scientists have developed a number of different concepts of gene, concepts that don’t always sit quite nicely and coherently with each other. Sounds like a job for philosophers of science…

The Nature of Evolutionary Biology

As part of my occasional series devoted to my own technical papers (forgive the self indulgence, but I’d like that body of work to be known to, if not appreciated by, a slightly wider audience than my academic colleagues), let’s discuss the nature of evolutionary biology as a scientific discipline.

The occasion is provided by a paper I published in a collection put together by K. Kampourakis, entitled The Philosophy of Biology: A Companion for Educators. (The book, here, is pretty expensive; my chapter can be downloaded for free here.)

On human races

The controversy of the concept of “race” in humans is always a live one, and I have commented on the topic before. We have, for instance, discussed the famous Stephen Jay Gould vs Samuel George Morton controversy, as well as a wonderfully clear headed paper by Jonathan Kaplan and Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther on “Realism, Antirealism, and Conventionalism about Race.”

Here I return to the topic by republishing a short paper I co-wrote with my colleague and long time friend Guido Barbujani (University of Ferrara, Italy), which originally appeared in Current Biology 23:185-187 (2013). I think our thoughts are still valid and may be useful to people interested in the never ending controversy.

If you endorse GMOs, get the science straight

One of the many public controversies about science swirling around nowadays concerns so-called GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms. It has become fashionable in certain quarters to bash any criticism of GMOs, regardless of whether it is directed to their alleged health implications, to their (again, alleged) long-term environmental impact, or to the (much less alleged and more concrete) market and labor practice of large GMOs producers like Monsanto.

The proximate–ultimate distinction and evolutionary developmental biology

What is the relationship between developmental and evolutionary biology? This apparently simple question (aren’t developmental systems the result of evolution?) has been controversial for more than half a century, which strongly hints at the possibility that the question isn’t just a scientific one (though it is that too), but also has inescapable philosophical dimensions.

My colleague Raphael Scholl and I published a paper on this very topic a couple of years ago in the journal Biology and Philosophy, and I think it is worth revisiting some of our arguments and conclusions.

Conversations with Dan: social vs natural science

Here is another of my occasional conversations with my friend and colleague Dan Kaufman, this time on the nature of explanation in social vs natural science (i.e., psychology, sociology and economics on one side; biology, chemistry, physics and the like on the other).

We begin by discussing what constitutes an explanation in the natural sciences, and the role causality plays in it. We then look for (and, in my mind, do not find) categorical differences between social and natural sciences — which of course does not mean that there are no interesting differences at all.