0026 I now make a slight adjustment to the previous two-level interscope. I replace the content-level “character” with the scientific term, “adaptation.
Here is a diagram of the result.
Figure 8
0027 In the realm of possibility, ‘something distinctive’1b virtually situates ‘distinctive adaptations’1a.
I do not find a ‘distinctive something’1b in Turbon’s article.
Instead, I find a litany of ‘distinctive adaptations’1a.
0028 I examine section one, titled “The Essentials of the Evolution of Humankind”. The section opens with a question, asking, “How can the technological and scientific output of different modern peoples be explained?”
Surely, that is a historical question.
0029 What about the time before history?
What about earlier species in the Homo genus?
For 700,000 years, australopithecines and early Homo used Oldewan stone tools. Then, for 1,000,000 years, middle Homo erectus used Acheulean stone tools. Finally, around 500,000 years ago, late Homo heidelbergensis and later, Homo neadertalis used more sophisticated suites of stone tools, again for a very long time. Around 100,000 years ago, stone tools become very sophisticated and the Upper Paleolithic Revolution dawns. The Upper Paleolithic associates to anatomically modern humans.
0030 Ah, that sounds more like an essential. Stone tool use must be a distinctive adaptation1a.
Here is where Turbon introduces the two previously-noted dyads in the style of actuality.
Figure 9
0031 Stone tools belong to extra-somatic culture. Plus, stone tools are adaptive. Stone tools allow humans to do activities that they otherwise could not.
Changes in human genetics must have facilitated a mind and a body that are capable of manufacturing and using stone tools. However, the facilitation takes many, many generations, suggesting that stone tool use was one of many clever survival techniques practiced by Homo habilis, “handy man”, and other members of the Homo genus.
0032 So, I wonder, “Do all these clever survival techniques, these extra-somatic adaptations, have ‘something distinctive’ in common?”
0033 The last blog adds more nuance to the ongoing two-level interscope.
Figure 10
0034 Evolutionary scientists propose adaptations that solve problems in the Pleistocene environment. Human genes somehow allow the phenotypes that carry these adaptations.
One adaptation is the use of Oldewan, then Acheulean, then more sophisticated stone tools. This is not the only adaptation. More on that later.
The body of Turbon’s article provides a litany of adaptations.
0035 In Section 1, hominins become smarter in general, with special intelligences mixed in. So, a person can not only talk (which is smart) but knows a lot about something that is of interest (which is special intelligence).
Surely, both DNA and the environment of evolutionary adaptation, genetics and natural history, are relevant. But, there is something more, as noted later in Turbon’s article, as well as in Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind.
0035 In Section 2.1, language is an adaptation that increases adaptability.
Here, Turbon refers to “language” as speech-alone talk. Today, many evolutionary scientists acknowledge that it is difficult to formulate how language evolves in the milieu of speech. However, as discussed in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s book (2016) Why only Us? More likely, “language”, evolves in the milieu of hand talk.I continue Turbon’s list in the next blog.
0036 Here are the adaptations proposed by Daniel Turbon in sections one and two of his paper, “The Distinctive Character of Human Being in Evolution”.
Figure 11
I continue.
0037 In Section 2.2, Turbon mentions brain reorganization and size increase, over very long periods of time. The parietal and frontal lobes preferentially enlarge. Encephalization increases.
There is more here than meets the eye. The brain not only increases but reorganizes. This is covered in Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind.The way hominins think changes over many, many generations. So does the brain’s architecture.
In Section 2.3, Turbon attaches importance to the FoxP2 regulatory gene. Mutations in the gene produce impediments to speech and writing. Scientists link the FoxP2 gene to neuro-motor control of rapid recursive and coordinated actions. Neanderthals and humans share identical FoxP2 gene sequences. Turbon associates this gene to speech-alone talk. The gene equally applies to hand talk.
0038 The dyad of the brain [adapts to] talk is covered in Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More Than Nature Needs. Our brain to body ratio is large. It’s so large as to seem to be more than necessary for survival. But, for talking, that is a different matter.
Also, children pick up language with a paucity of clues. More cognitive processing is needed for that. The question is, “How to model linguistic communication, in order to account for how children bootstrap language use.” The answer is wrestled with in Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?
0039 In section 3.1 and 3.2, Turbon discusses a potential concurrent adaptation in the domestication of fire (starting around 800,000 years ago) and advances in stone tool technologies (starting around 500,000 years ago). There seems to be a transition, here. Why do these two extra-somatic adaptations occur in tandem?
These questions are addressed in Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big. Increasing neocortex size correlates to larger group sizes. Larger group sizes correlate to larger brain size. Do I detect a feedback loop? Does this feedback loop ramp up with the adaptations of cooking and hunting with composite wood and stone tools?
0040 In Sections 4 and 5, Turbon discusses the evolution of the family. Increasing encephalization means bigger heads. In order to fit through the birth canal, big-brained babies are born early. They are helpless infants. Infant helplessness should lead to higher mortality in the dangerous environment of the open savannah. The family is one adaptation that decreases risk for infants and children. So are other social circles, such as the team, the band, and finally, the community.
0041 Finally, in Section 6, Turbon discusses altruism.
0042 In the previous blog, I considered the adaptations listed by Turbon, in addition to high-level cognition, extra-somatic culture and talk (language).
Here is the list.
Figure 12
0043 All these are adaptations. Adaptations exploit a niche. So, in the ongoing two level interscope, the distinctive character1bsustaining a noumenal origin of human2b in the normal context of human intuition3b, must be the human niche1b. The human niche1b, in turn, virtually situates Turbon’s list of adaptations1a.
This is the central claim in the masterwork, The Human Niche.
The human niche1b is the potential of triadic relations1b.
0045 Every adaptation1a detailed by Daniel Turbon exploits triadic relations1b.
Once the origin of human beings2b is appreciated in terms of signs, category-based nested forms, judgment and other triadic relations1b, then our adaptations1a appear like observable and measurable facets2a of a single noumenon, the human niche1b.
0046 Turbon’s appeal in the last sentence of his abstract receives has already been answered.
A Course on the Human Niche is available on the smashwords website. Search the following terms on the internet: human niche course series Razie Mah smashwords. Any reasonable browser will point the reader to the location containing A Course on the Human Niche.
0047 The course begins with a Primer on Natural Signs. The medieval scholastic tradition ends, in the 1600s, and the philosophy of Charles Peirce begins, in the 1800s, with an inquiry into the nature of sign relations. Signs, like all triadic relations, entangle the material world. However, material and instrumental causalities cannot account for triadic relations.
0048 Then, the course offers commentaries on four books by modern thinkers on human evolution. These commentaries are:
Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big
Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) Prehistory of Mind
Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More Than Nature Needs
Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?
0049 The course wraps up with the masterwork, The Human Niche.
0050 In sum, A Course on the Human Niche, offers an approach to the alignment of philosophy and science dwelling in the heart of Turbon’s essay.
0051 Once human evolution2a is ordered by an appreciation of how our origins are potentiated by the realness of triadic relations2b, a very surprising realization occurs.
Human evolution comes with a twist.
0052 What does that mean?
Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The realization is dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall.
The implications are discussed in Comments on Daniel Houck’s Book (2020) “Aquinas, Original Sin and the Challenge of Evolution”, Comments on Five Views in the Book (2020) “Original Sin and Evolution” and Comments on James DeFrancisco’s Essay “Original Sin and Ancestral Sin”. All are available at smashwords.
0053 At this moment, Daniel Turbon does not know.
At this moment, the journal, Scientia and Fides, does not know.
0054 There is something distinctively human in that.
0001 In 2009, Robert Pennock wants to clear the fog of intellectual warfare, by publishing an article in Synthese (DOI 10.1007/s11229-009-9547-3). The full title is, “Can’t Philosophers Tell the Difference Between Science and Religion?: Demarcation Revisited”. Of course, a recitation of this title should be accompanied by a pouring of the Balvenie, matured in rum casks and aged 14 years. After all, that is nearly the length of time that the words in Pennock’s paper have matured, in the cask of the Synthese.
Pennock’s abstract puts the headline question into context. The 2005 decision, Kitzmiller versus Dover Area School Board, rules that Intelligent Design (ID) cannot be taught as a science. This suggests that it cannot be taught at all, because the flip side of science is religion. Public schools cannot teach religion. That would violate the separation of church and state.
0002 The ruling follows a prior legal defeat, the 1981, McLean versus Arkansas decision against teaching creationism as science. Afterwards, creationists contend that religion and science cannot be distinguished. They cite a philosopher who claims that there are not sufficient criteria for demarcation, especially when considering method.
In contrast, Pennock argues that the word, “sufficient”, should be replaced by the word, “ballpark”. Rules of thumb are capable of distinguishing between science and religion. One rule of thumb is methodical naturalism. Science relies on it. Religion does not.
Does Pennock influence the 2005 Kitzmiller vs Dover trial?
Of course, why would Pennock write about the incident years later?
The text itself, is not clear.
What is clear?
Judge John E. Jones III rules that ID pretends to be a science. ID is really an apparatus of a sectarian religion. Teaching ID in public schools would be the establishment of a religion, in violation of the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Both sides of the case ask the judge to rule on this point.
0003 The ruling comes as a victory for Big Government (il)Liberals (BG(il)L), who portray the contest as follows.
The “villains” are the Board of Directors of the Public Schools of Dover, Pennsylvania. Creationists gain enough seats to vote to make the ID textbook, Of Pandas and People, available as biology curricula. In this book, natural selection becomes “Darwin’s theory”, which is not a fact, but a theory.
The “heroes” are several parents who sue the district. They all fall under the label, “Kitzmiller”.
Curiously, “kitze” is a neuter noun for a kid goat. “Miller” is a person who grinds grain in a mill. Perhaps, the concatenation carries a symbolic message.
The “villainous” school district is defended by the Thomas More Law Center, which does not realize that they are about to have their heads handed back to them. This becomes clear after they call key leaders of the ID movement to testify.
The lawyers at the Thomas More Center think that this trial will provide a platform for these players. But, as the media circus tent goes up, many ID players withdraw. What a disaster for the Dover Board lawyers!
0004 The BG(il)L corporate media portray the legal drama as a replay of the 1925 Scopes Trial.
To Pennock, the trial is more like the 1981 McLean vs Arkansas trial. The McClean decision concludes that so called “creation science” is not science, but religion. Here, “religion” means “a Christian faction”.
Such a ruling seems simple enough. But, the judge, William Overton, relies on a philosopher of science, Michael Ruse, who offers criteria to distinguish science from non-science.
0005 What are the criteria (A-E)?
Science (A) must be guided by natural law.
Science (B) explains by reference to natural law.
Science (C) is tested against the empirical world.
The conclusions of science (D) are tentative, and not necessarily the final word, because…
Science (E) is falsifiable.
0006 After the 1981 Overton decision, two philosophers, Larry Laudan and Philip Quinn, take issue with Ruse’s criteria. Do they write on behalf of the ID movement? Is this damage control? Pennock is drawn into the debate after he contributes expert testimony on the question whether ID is science or whether ID is religion.
Is this the trauma giving rise to Pennock’s article?
Hard to say.
0007 Pennock reflects upon the question posed in the title.
He wants to offer a more acceptable path for distinguishing science and religion.
0008 Can one differentiate science from non-science?
Why is this question relevant?
The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that the federal government shall not establish a religion.
Is that the same as establishing a non-science?
So, the first question twists. Is religion a non-science?
It turns away from an old relevance, where the word “religion” means “a Christian faction”.
It twists towards a new relevance, where “religion” is defined by an underlying meaning, presence and message. This is the topic of the masterwork, How To Define the Word, Religion.
0009 Why is this twist relevant?
What if the U.S. federal government establishes a religion?
What would be the nature of this religion?
Clearly, this religion is not a Christian faction.
Rather, it consists of diverse movements, a thousand points of light, that (F) claim to be “not religious” and (G) demand sovereign power in order to implement their organizational objectives. Since each objective arises from the potential of righteousness, these diverse religions constantly signal their virtues. They are keen on making sure that their organizational objectives get the government funds that they deserve. Righteousness wins power and money.
Does the legal debate that Pennock addresses concern a single point of light, among thousands?
No. Public education is… um… a big fish.
Yes, it’s a gigantic fish with sharp teeth.
0010 So, the question turns full circle.
Can science be taught as a religion?
The world is upside down. The ocean is where the sky should be. The sky is where the sea should be. The demarcation problem rests on the surface of this upside-down ocean. In this world, whales fly in the waters above.
The Story of Creation floats as a little boat that draws the leviathan of public education down from the heights, in a re-enactment of an orientation-challenged Moby Dick. The Captain Ahab of Creation Science wants to kill the leviathan, directly. In doing so, he would bring the celestial waters of the deep state into consciousness. The highly elevated deep state contains a thousand institutions, whose points of light orient Big Government (il)Liberals. Plus, this heavenly sea holds some really big fish.
Because these institutions3aC, both lights and fish, have organizational objectives2aC that emerge from (and situate) the potential of righteousness1aC, they are religions.
They appear to be stars dwelling high in a fish-filled celestial ocean of righteousness.
Ah, the relevant question becomes, “How does one distinguish religion from non-religion?”
0011 Here is how this fully twisted vision appears.
Figure 01
0012 Does this explain why the dismissal of the demarcation problem is premature?
If the world is upside down, then The Creation Science aims to lance a leviathan that dwells deep in the narratives of the heavenly waters of Big Government (il)Liberalism.
0013 Okay. I must hold, in my mind, the upside-down celestial waters.
Within these waters, a leviathan swims, asking the questions, “Can Intelligent Design be taught as a science? How do we demark science and non-science (that is, religion)?”
But, those on the surface, the sailors on the ship, The Creation Science, suspect that the leviathan is really asking, “Can we teach science as a religion?”
Of course, it all depends on how one defines the word, “religion”.
0014 In section 3, Pennock considers the philosophy behind the 2005 Kitzmiller vs Dover decision and establishes five points (H-L).
First (H), Kitzmiller does not follow the criteria used in the McLean case (points A-E).
Second (I), Kitzmiller relies on a ballpark demarcation (a ground rule, so to speak). Creationism violates this ground rule.
Third (J), the ground rule is methodological naturalism. This rule says, “Metaphysics is not allowed.”
The word, “metaphysics”, is rooted in two terms, meta- (to cross over) and -physics (the physical). Naturalism does not allow its followers to pass out of the realm of phenomena. Phenomena consists in that which is observable and measurable.
0015 Pennock dwells on this point (J) at length.
To me, he describes the Naturalist’s judgment.
Allow me to elaborate.
A judgment is a primal triadic relation, consisting in three elements: relation, what is and what ought to be.
0016 The relation is the naturalist intellect, which rules out metaphysics. This relation is imbued with Peirce’s category of thirdness. Thirdness associates with a normal context3, as described in A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form.
0017 What is consists of phenomena. Phenomena are observable and measurable features of a thing or event.
There is a certain philosophical emptiness to phenomena. After all, phenomena do not constitute the thing itself, even though some may imagine that this is the case. The thing itself cannot be objectified as its phenomena. So, there is a word for the thing itself: “noumenon”.
What does this imply?
What is may be expressed as a continuity between two real elements, a noumenon and its phenomena. That continuity is placed in brackets for notational clarity. What is consists of a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.
This dyad belongs to the category of firstness. Firstness is the monadic realm of possibility. Phenomena have the potential to be observed and measured. A noumenon has the potential of capturing the attention of the naturalist intellect.
0018 What ought to be consists of another judgment, where disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings together mechanical and mathematical models (what ought to be, secondness) with observations and measurements (what is, firstness). This triadic relation is called “the empirio-schematic judgment” and first appears in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.
The empirio-schematic judgment, what ought to be, in the Naturalist’s judgment, is imbued with secondness, the character of actuality.
Here is a diagram.
Figure 02
0019 Fourth (K), the ground rule of “no metaphysics” does not appeal to the criterion of falsifiability (E).
At this point, I can see that the criteria espoused by Michael Ruse applies to portions of the Naturalist’s judgment. A and B cohere to the naturalist intellect (relation) and the selection of noumena (what is). Noumena must be things that have observable and measurable facets to their forms. C, D and E pertain to the connection between the empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be) and phenomena (what is).
In terms of the metaphor of inversion, Michael Ruse’s criteria keep us firmly fixed in the celestial waters, where the leviathan of the “not religious” sciences swims.
0020 In order to appreciate this whale of a topic, swimming in the heights of state-funded liquidity, I unfold the Naturalist’s and the empirio-schematic judgments into category-based nested forms, based on their assigned categories. The result is a two-level interscope
The interscope is introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
Here is the diagram.
Figure 03
0021 Methodologicala naturalismb may be depicted as a two-level interscope. Method goes with the empirio-schematic judgment. Naturalism goes with the Naturalist’s judgment.
The naturalist intellect3b rules out metaphysics. This rule is Pennock’s last point (L). The rule, “no metaphysics”, comes from an occluded perspective level. The rule does not reveal what is in the perspective level. Indeed, the naturalist views the rule as coming from the content level.
Disciplinary language for each science3a follows the rule of the naturalist’s intellect3b. Any disciplinary language3a that discusses metaphysics cannot be labeled as a “science”.
Of course, in this situation, the word, “metaphysics”, is code for Christian theology. But, that is not what “metaphysics” really means, as previously noted.
This exclusion follows the logic of normal contexts. Normal contexts exclude, align or complement.
0022 Creation science talks about metaphysics, while pretending not to.So, in the 1981 McLean vs Arkansas trial, the leviathan in the celestial waters of BG(il)L descends to upset the boat, The Creation Science, and bites off the leg of its captain.
First, the world is upside down. The ocean of Big Government (il)Liberalism sloshes above, as a world suspended in surreal liquidity, heavy and looming. The regulatory sea holds a thousand points of light, each submerged in its own righteousness. A leviathan swims in these celestial waters. This leviathan applies the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to education by state and federally funded institutions. These schools may teach science, but not religion. Here, “religion” means “a Christian faction”.
Second, a small boat, initially named The Creation Science, then later (after the unfortunate moment when the captain lost a leg to stand on) named The Intelligent Design, floats on the surface, that is, the bottom, of this inverted ocean. This boat hunts the above-mentioned leviathan. The academically inclined sailors fashion a lance of that looks like the methodological level of science. But, the captain does not fully comprehend what harm it can do.
The captain?
0024 Philosopher Larry Laudan comes under scrutiny in the fourth section of Pennock’s essay. After the McLean case (the leg-bite), this philosopher writes three articles denying a demarcation between science and religion. There are no criteria for strictly distinguishing what is religious, what is scientific, what is pseudo-scientific and what is unscientific.
Laudan struggles mightily against the criteria of Michael Ruse (A-E).
Two arguments support his conclusions (M and N).
The first (M) says, more or less, “There is a lack of unity between philosophers about the demarcation criteria.”
Okay, experts rarely agree. That is the nature of experts.
The second (N) says, more or less, “The 1981 McLean versus Arkansas case is hollow, because it canonizes a false stereotype of what science is and how it works.”
I suspect that this is correct because Ruse’s criteria (A-E) pertain to what is and what ought to be in the Naturalist’s judgment. The empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be) unfolds into the content level of the following two-level interscope. The Naturalist’s judgment unfolds into the situation level.
Figure 04
0025 Michael Ruse’s criteria (A-E) draw attention to the content level.
Perhaps, this is why the author, Robert Pennock, wants to set the record straight.
The 1981 McLean case focuses on the content of science.
The 2005 Kitzmiller case focuses on the situation of science.
What does this suggest?
0025 The Intelligent Design comes up with a better tactic. Of Pandas and People follows the style of the empirio-schematic judgment. Ruse’s criteria lack teeth.Pennock sees this and proposes that science must be distinguished, not on the methodological levela, but on the naturalism levelb. The ground rule of the naturalist intellect3b is “no metaphysics”.
