<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"><font color="#0000ff"> [Eric] A much belated larded reply to David's generous comment regarding the description-explanation issue..... </font><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[David] Lacking the wit tore- weave the argument that has
unraveled into several threads and posts; an attempt to begin afresh from one
of the points of origin - the Introduction to a book by Nick and Eric.</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">First a common ascription: " A description
is understood as a simple statement of a fact, whereas an explanation is an
interpretation. A description simply says what happened, whereas an explanation
says why it happened."</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189)">[Eric] Yes, and, of course, that is asserted baldly. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Followed by an argument that description and
explanation are pretty close to the same thing: all descriptions explain;
all explanations describe, and both are in some sense, interpretations.</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189)">[Eric] Yes, which is basically the assertion that, if
you look closer, the presumed distinction doesn’t work. That sets up the need
to either assert that there is no difference, or that there is a different
difference. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Then a discussion that leads right back to the
same distinction: "Descriptions are explanations that the speaker
and audience take to be true for the purpose of seeking further explanations.
Conversely, explanations are descriptions that the speaker and audience hold to
be unverified under the present circumstances."</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Well… hopefully that is NOT the
same distinction. We are now claiming that it is a matter of what the speaker
takes for granted. That makes it something about the
person-in-relation-to-the-statement, not a quality of the
statement-relative-to-the-world. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">There is, however, a (in my mind) subtle error
here, in that the assertion just quoted uses the word "true" as if it
was the same thing as "assumed for the purposes of argument" — the
conclusion of the argument about differences — which it is not.
Similarly, "unverified" is not the same as "contested absent
further information;."</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189)">Hmmmmm… well… I
think there is a difference between “true” and “assumed for the purposes of
argument”, but I’m not sure I think there is a difference between the later and
“taken to be true for certain purposes in the conversation”. Maybe there needs
to be a bit of wordsmithing there, but I’m not sure there is an error beyond
that. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">I presume that this error? was intentional, as
they need descriptions and, later, models to have this "truthiness"
quality.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] We need “description” to have
the quality of something currently assumed accurate. However that gets phrased.
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">The discussion of explanations as models with
'basic" and "surplus" implications (surplus being divided into
"intended" and "unintended") parallels and, except for
vocabulary, duplicates McCormac's discussion of the evolution of metaphor from
epiphor to either "lexical term" or "dead metaphor."
[Unlike Glen, I have no difficulty with metaphor as a kind of philosopher's
stone for sense-making in science.]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] We will have to look into that!</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">The discussion of levels of explanations is
where the need for "truthy" descriptions comes back into play.
Somewhere in our hierarchy of models is the need for a "true" purely
descriptive model. Even within any given model there is a need to accept the
"Basic Meaning" as being "true" and purely descriptive, so
we can go about researching and verifying (or not) the intended "surplus
meanings."</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Well…. Yes and No… there is
never a “true, purely descriptive model” except that it functions as such
within a larger discourse. We need to have assumptions to move forward, but we
don’t need to act like they aren’t assumptions. (As we go about doing science,
some people will quickly come to treat those claims as non-assumptions, but
others will keep track of the assumptions. You can do science either way, but
you need to act as <i>something</i> is true,
or you can never do anything. ) </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Although it is evident how and why they need
"truth" in order to proceed with their discussion and argument, I am
unwilling to grant it. For me, both explanations and descriptions are
"interpretations" with no qualitative differentiation.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] They are functional different,
and identical objects can performing both functions. (At least that is our
claim.) “The pencil fell” could be a description or it could be an explanation.
It is descriptive in “Why did the pencil fall? The pencil fell, because the cat
swatted it.” If you could say, “I think you’re initial premise is wrong, the
pencil didn’t fall”, then you would be challenging the description. The same
phrase is explanatory in “Why is the pencil on the floor? The pencil is on the
floor, because the pencil fell.” If could say, “I don’t think that’s how it got
that way, nothing fell, Jill picked the pencil up and put it on the ground”
then you would be challenging the explanation. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Their goal is to be "scientific" and
so "truthy" models must remain and become fundamental to the
evaluation of explanations. Evaluation is taken to be a two step process, with
each step having three aspects.</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] I’m not sure exactly how to
unpack that. We will be, eventually, trying to explain what is happening when
people do science, but more broadly the basic claim is about what it means to
engage in describing and explain anything, under any circumstances. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Specify the explanation:</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 1. find the foundational (root of the
theory) "true" description. </span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 2. expose the model - i.e. the metaphor.</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 3. expose the intended surplus
implications such that research can begin to verify/disprove them.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Hmmmm…. I think I would want to
phrase these as: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">1. Given any explanation, something is
assumed to be true for the purposes of explanation, it helps to know what that
is. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">2. Given anything claimed to be an
explanation, scrutiny will either unravel it into nothingness, or will find a
model/metaphor being employed. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">3. If it is a model/metaphor,
continuing the scrutiny will reveal some potential implications of the metaphor
to be intended, and other potential implications unintended. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Evaluate the explanation</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 1. discard the explanation if there are
no surplus implications exposed for investigation.</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 2. confirm the basic implications</span><br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> 3. prove some number of the intended
surplus implications to be "true."</span><br>
<br>
</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Hmmm…. I think I would want to
phrase these as: </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">1. If the scrutiny reveals the
so-called explanation to be nothing but word salad, move on. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">2. It never hurts to check the
proposed description, i.e., to check that the thing you are trying to explain
is real. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">3. <i>If</i>
you want to test the veracity of the explanation, <i>then</i> you do so by investigating the stuff that you don’t know to be
true, but which the explainer intended to be true, expressed in the act of
offering that explanation. And, like… if you don’t care if the explanation is
correct… then don’t… That is the only coherent approach to verifying an
explanation. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Nice and tidy - except it does not / cannot work
this way. Just like the "scientific method" in general, this
construct can serve, at best, as an after the fact rationalization of a course
of investigation.</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Well… we would hope that it
would segregate the variety of efforts into things that made progress and
things that end in a confused muddle. We would certainly never claim that
everything everyone does is coherent. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Absent a "true" description at its
root, a theory becomes a Jenga tower of speculation.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] YES! Now we’re talking! And,
there is NEVER a firm foundation of “true description”, never ever. No
arguments from authority are allowed. There are only descriptions assumed true,
which (due to their place in a description-explanation hierarchy) have held up
under various levels of scrutiny. There are many things that we know enough
about to be dumbfounded if they were overturned, but none we know so well as to
be sure they might not, at some later time, be found to be a special case of
some larger phenomenon. (Newtonian Physics is likely the most notable example
of a seemingly unassailable and foundational system being found to be a special
case.) </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">"Confirmation" of basic implications
is too often a "political" exercise — so too any "proving"
of surplus implications as "true" — witness the Copenhagen
Interpretation of Quantum Physics. (Or, in the case of 'proving" things,
the fact that string theory and many other quantum theories generate no
testable intentional surplus implications.)</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Sure, but that’s a separate
issue, which I think is compatible with our argument. Forcing agreement via
political means is a distinct process from the process of confirming the
implications of a hypothesis. And if you have something you call a theory, but
it has no testable implications, then you are back to the word-salad game.
(Your theory might have implications not-yet-testable due to our limited
ability to manipulate the world in a particular way, and still fit with what we
are saying, but if it has no implications testable under any circumstances,
then it is word salad.) </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">It is far too easy to move inconvenient (i.e.
unprovable) "intended surplus implications to the "unintended'
category — witness Artificial Intelligence and the mind-is-computer-is-mind
model/metaphor.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] YES! And that is a major source
of intellectual slippage. That is one of the many things that has gone wrong
regarding how people think about evolution, which is where we are headed. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">The "unintended" surplus implications
might, more often than not, be more important than the "intended"
ones — witness epigenetics.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Well… an unintended implication
is a part of the metaphor that was not intended by whoever offered the
metaphor. “My love is like a rose” does not intend that she wilts quickly if
not kept in water. If I understand what you are getting at (and I might not),
then epigenetics isn’t unintended implication, it is not even part of the
metaphor. The discovery that there are crucial factors not remotely connected
to the central metaphor of a field should trigger the search for new metaphor,
with the prior metaphor either being rejected altogether, or being understood
as a special/limiting case. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Reliance on models, even structured models like
those proposed, eliminates "context" because all models are, if not
abstractions, simplifications; focusing only on what is deemed 'relevant."</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Yes indeed!</span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">This last point makes me want to read the rest
of Eric's and Nick's book, because I suspect I would find agreement with the
last point of my argument. I surmise this from the all to brief mention that:
"we will find that the problem Darwin’s theory does suffer from is that it
is wrong. Yes…Wrong! Darwinian Theory is wrong in a much more limited
sense – empirical evidence shows that a comprehensive explanation for
adaptation will require the inclusion of other explanatory principles, to
complement the explanatory power of natural selection. "</span><br>
<br>
<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">Which brings me to a concluding question: can
'broken-wing' behavior convey an evolutionary advantage to the Killdeer absent
a mechanism the maintains the gullibility of the Fox? It would seem to me that
Foxes whose behavior ignored the Killdeer feint would be better fed (eggs and
nestlings) than those that were fooled and therefore obtain an evolutionary
advantage that would, eventually make the Killdeer seek an alternative
strategy.</span><br>
<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] It would be surprising to find
‘broken-wing’ behavior being maintained in the long run without Fox
gullibility. If all species started exhibiting what is now Killdeer-specific
deceptive behavior, such behavior would actually become a reliable signal that
communicated to the Fox that it should keep searching where it is searching. We
may presume a Darwinian story in which foxes that respond to broken-wing
behavior still get to eat a bird more often, on average, than those foxes which
do not. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><br>
</span> [David] <span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif"><span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">An off-hand BTW — I much prefer postmodern
methods of deconstruction as a methodology; not to find "Truth" which
does not exist, IMO, but simply to keep the investigation lively and honest.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] Fair enough! You’ll just have
to keep reading to find out if you like it better or worse when we are done ;-
)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;line-height:115%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(79,129,189);background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial">[Eric] By that way, as I indicated
before, this is an extremely thoughtful evaluation of that chapter, and I
greatly appreciated it. Any further discussion would be very, very welcome, and
if you were really interested, I’m sure we could get you some of the other in-progress
chapters. </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial"></span></p><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br clear="all">-----------<br><div dir="ltr">Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.<br>Department of Justice - Personnel <span>Psychologist</span></div><div>American University - Adjunct Instructor</div><div></div></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="mailto:echarles@american.edu" target="_blank"></a></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Dec 24, 2019 at 7:26 AM Prof David West <<a href="mailto:profwest@fastmail.fm">profwest@fastmail.fm</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Lacking the wit tore- weave the argument that has unraveled into several threads and posts; an attempt to begin afresh from one of the points of origin - the Introduction to a book by Nick and Eric.<br>
<br>
First a common ascription: " A description is understood as a simple statement of a fact, whereas an explanation is an interpretation. A description simply says what happened, whereas an explanation says why it happened."<br>
<br>
Followed by an argument that description and explanation are pretty close to the same thing: all descriptions explain; all explanations describe, and both are in some sense, interpretations.<br>
<br>
Then a discussion that leads right back to the same distinction: "Descriptions are explanations that the speaker and audience take to be true for the purpose of seeking further explanations. Conversely, explanations are descriptions that the speaker and audience hold to be unverified under the present circumstances." <br>
<br>
There is, however, a (in my mind) subtle error here, in that the assertion just quoted uses the word "true" as if it was the same thing as "assumed for the purposes of argument" — the conclusion of the argument about differences — which it is not. Similarly, "unverified" is not the same as "contested absent further information;."<br>
<br>
I presume that this error? was intentional, as they need descriptions and, later, models to have this "truthiness" quality.<br>
<br>
The discussion of explanations as models with 'basic" and "surplus" implications (surplus being divided into "intended" and "unintended") parallels and, except for vocabulary, duplicates McCormac's discussion of the evolution of metaphor from epiphor to either "lexical term" or "dead metaphor." [Unlike Glen, I have no difficulty with metaphor as a kind of philosopher's stone for sense-making in science.] <br>
<br>
The discussion of levels of explanations is where the need for "truthy" descriptions comes back into play. Somewhere in our hierarchy of models is the need for a "true" purely descriptive model. Even within any given model there is a need to accept the "Basic Meaning" as being "true" and purely descriptive, so we can go about researching and verifying (or not) the intended "surplus meanings."<br>
<br>
Although it is evident how and why they need "truth" in order to proceed with their discussion and argument, I am unwilling to grant it. For me, both explanations and descriptions are "interpretations" with no qualitative differentiation.<br>
<br>
Their goal is to be "scientific" and so "truthy" models must remain and become fundamental to the evaluation of explanations. Evaluation is taken to be a two step process, with each step having three aspects.<br>
<br>
Specify the explanation:<br>
1. find the foundational (root of the theory) "true" description.<br>
2. expose the model - i.e. the metaphor.<br>
3. expose the intended surplus implications such that research can begin to verify/disprove them.<br>
Evaluate the explanation<br>
1. discard the explanation if there are no surplus implications exposed for investigation.<br>
2. confirm the basic implications<br>
3. prove some number of the intended surplus implications to be "true."<br>
<br>
Nice and tidy - except it does not / cannot work this way. Just like the "scientific method" in general, this construct can serve, at best, as an after the fact rationalization of a course of investigation.<br>
<br>
Absent a "true" description at its root, a theory becomes a Jenga tower of speculation.<br>
<br>
"Confirmation" of basic implications is too often a "political" exercise — so too any "proving" of surplus implications as "true" — witness the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics. (Or, in the case of 'proving" things, the fact that string theory and many other quantum theories generate no testable intentional surplus implications.)<br>
<br>
It is far too easy to move inconvenient (i.e. unprovable) "intended surplus implications to the "unintended' category — witness Artificial Intelligence and the mind-is-computer-is-mind model/metaphor.<br>
<br>
The "unintended" surplus implications might, more often than not, be more important than the "intended" ones — witness epigenetics.<br>
<br>
Reliance on models, even structured models like those proposed, eliminates "context" because all models are, if not abstractions, simplifications; focusing only on what is deemed 'relevant."<br>
<br>
This last point makes me want to read the rest of Eric's and Nick's book, because I suspect I would find agreement with the last point of my argument. I surmise this from the all to brief mention that: "we will find that the problem Darwin’s theory does suffer from is that it is wrong. Yes…Wrong! Darwinian Theory is wrong in a much more limited sense – empirical evidence shows that a comprehensive explanation for adaptation will require the inclusion of other explanatory principles, to complement the explanatory power of natural selection. "<br>
<br>
Which brings me to a concluding question: can 'broken-wing' behavior convey an evolutionary advantage to the Killdeer absent a mechanism the maintains the gullibility of the Fox? It would seem to me that Foxes whose behavior ignored the Killdeer feint would be better fed (eggs and nestlings) than those that were fooled and therefore obtain an evolutionary advantage that would, eventually make the Killdeer seek an alternative strategy.<br>
<br>
An off-hand BTW — I much prefer postmodern methods of deconstruction as a methodology; not to find "Truth" which does not exist, IMO, but simply to keep the investigation lively and honest.<br>
<br>
davew<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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