human behaviour is the realm of psychology and any book attempting to explain human behaviour is open to critique from psychologists. ellipses

I like ellipses

Well i think it's unfair to pass judgement on such a critically acclaimed book without first reading it. The consensus seems to be that it is a great book - and that it annoyed philosophers and bishops which I'm totally behind.

biology and genetics have played a major part in the history of psychology just so you know. and yeah you're probably right but i don't like dawkins and don't want to buy his book anyway etc

you should read beyond freedom and dignity if you want to see biological reductionism in psychology taken too far. shit is hilarious

This post was edited by Devil_kin on Jan 24 2015 01:35pm

But that is generally because his work has problems in it that are generally worked out in 1000 level philosophy classes and they are simple mistakes that other (less loud mouthed) scientists tend not to make. This mistake is generally not recognizing the logical asymmetry between Affirming the Antecedent and Denying the Consequent in the scientific method. There are also other gripes with his work too, like unjustified jumps from particulars to universals, and from is's to his personal and subjective ought's.



Reductionism is bad. Oversimplifying problems isn't the way to solve them or gain knowledge, and it is a really bad premise given that we know some properties are emergent and separate from physical relations....life and consciousness being the prime examples. But who knows what else science may unveil in coming time?

And the smug voice thing would be a deal breaker too :/ But it is something that I've had to deal with in years of academia, which has mostly been in Psychology classes regarding Evolutionary Psychology.



Bio, psycho, and social are elements that simply cannot be separated when considering the human existence.

The biggest mistake in academia is considering the various disciplines as different from one another then having them compete with one another to be Masters of the Truth. This is how reductionism comes about....economists explain all phenomena in economic reductionist terms, psychologists explain phenomena in purely psychological terms, sociologists, biologists, logicians, ethicist, geneticists, etc, etc, and what have you. Their competition for being the Masters of Truth is fueled by competition for grant money, funding, and of course prestige among peers. This is one reason the scientific community works so well, because there are legions of brilliant minds seeking to destroy any piece of literature that is put forward, but it has the double-edge of leading to reductionism and bad science at times because of unfalsifiable theories.

This post was edited by Skinned on Jan 24 2015 01:55pm

making me want to go back to school :((

Life is quite easily reduced to physical relations.

The single only thing in the world, that may be at odds with reductive physicalism, is consciousness, though there is a magnificent hypothesis on how to reconcile this from my favorite philosopher: http://physicalism.com/

In a nutshell, the world is intrinsically phenomenal/conscious at the quantum level and the laws of physics describe fields of experience. Kind of beautiful. It's a form of physicalistic idealism.



The purpose of the "higher level" sciences (chemistry, biology, economics, sociology) is not to describe different phenomena from physics; it is merely to describe phenomena at a different level of precision for practical purposes. Yes, we could in theory fully and exhaustively describe chemistry, biology, economics, and sociology through pure mathematical physics, but this is practically impossible which is why it's must more useful and efficient to describe apparently "emergent" properties (which aren't actually emergent in any real sense) with the lens that gives us the most useful information.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Jan 24 2015 04:22pm

You don't think that being alive itself isn't qualitatively different than just being a rock? Vitalism is a huge and anti-reductionist view in biology.

This post was edited by Skinned on Jan 24 2015 04:26pm

No I most certainly do not, both living and non-living systems are fully describable via physics, though from a human perspective it is definitely apparently different enough to categorize life separately from non-life. Again, for practical purposes.

Now I think being a conscious being is qualitatively different than being a rock, for reasons I can't quite explain.



One that deserves absolutely no attention, in my opinion (and doesn't get much as far as I'm aware). Think "huge" might be exaggerating a bit because I literally couldn't name a single vitalist nor anyone who thinks its a worthwhile idea.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Jan 24 2015 04:28pm

So to you plants and rocks are no different then? Despite the difference on the cellular level?

Is it weird that I care about my plants in a way that isn't too different from the way I care about my pets?

This post was edited by Skinned on Jan 24 2015 04:28pm

Correct, again both can be looked at reductively and still be fully described, and when one looks at the molecular level of the cells in question the molecules are as non-living as the ones any other physical system.




A tad weird, but understandable. Living things are delicate and there is a sort of paternal feeling one gets when caring for one, at least for me. I still hope you value your pets over your plants