Adaptation, teleology, and selection by consequences

This paper presents and defends the view that reinforcement and natural selection are selection processes, that selection processes are neither mechanistic nor teleological, and that mentalistic and vitalistic processes are teleological but not mechanistic. The differences between these types of processes are described and used in discussing the conceptual and methodological significance of “selection type theories” and B. F. Skinner's radical behaviorist view that “operant behavior is the field of intention, purpose, and expectation. It deals with that field precisely as the theory of evolution has dealt with another kind of purpose” (1986, p. 716). The antimentalism of radical behaviorism emerges as a post-Darwinian extension of Francis Bacon's (and Galileo's) influential view that “[the introduction of final causes] rather corrupts than advances the sciences” (Bacon, 1905, p. 302).     

The myth of science education

It is argued that the manner in which we teach science in the high schools represents an outdated positivistic conception of science. The standard presentation of a year of each of chemistry, biology and physics should be replaced by an integrated science plus history, philosophy, and sociology of science which would take a total of three years to complete. A proper appreciation for the true nature of science is essential to the continued health of the scientific enterprise.     

Natural ways are better: Adolescents and the ‘anti-obesity’ gene

Empirical research with young people in Finland, Germany, Spain and Britain was carried out as part of the BIOCULT project funded by the European Union. The project focused on their attitudes to biotechnology and, in particular, the formation of arguments about risk and safety. This paper looks at the responses of 14–18 year olds to a story about the so called anti-obesity gene, in the form of advice to a friend who is taking it. The majority advised against taking it with some differences by gender and country. Most reservations were on grounds of safety and the feeling that ‘natural’ ways to lose weight are better: A minority questioned the idea of striving for a ‘perfect’ body. The types of arguments used by the young people reveal underlying perspectives on the place of human beings in the world and whether they have a right to manipulate nature and their own bodies. Marie Levitt is a sociologist with research interests in attitudes and values in relation to biotechnology, health and religion.     

Reviews

Russell,Robert John, Murphy, Nancey and Peacocke, Arthur R. (eds) Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action
Tigue, John W. The Transformation of Consciousness in Myth: Integrating the Thought of Jung and Campbell     

EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT HISTORY AND INSTRUCTIONS ON THE PERSISTENCE OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

We examined the effects of three reinforcement histories on the persistence of task engagement by 2 fourth-grade students using a partially counterbalanced ABCDBCD design. In each condition, an experimenter made four student contacts during the first 2 min of each session (reinforcement baseline), followed by an 8-min extinction period. The reinforcement history that contained an instructional control component produced the greatest persistence in student engagement. The applied relevance of instructional control is discussed.     

Response to John Beebe

This paper briefly describes the history of the professional interaction between psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists in the United States. There has been little public contact between the two groups since the personal feud between Freud and Jung has beer carried forth to the present generation of analysts. The relationship between Otto Rank and Freud and his circle demonstrated many of the same dynamics that were activated between Freud and Jung, who had broken off their relationship ten years earlier; this paper highlights the similarities between Jung's, then Rank's, exile from the psychoanalytic group, Jung's interest in spiritual matters, including his interest in the nature of religious experience, and his questionable dealing with the Nazis during the 1930s have been the stated reason for the taboo set against Jung's writings. Presently there seems to be a growing realization that there are large areas of mutual interest, and both the similarities and differences between the schools need further exploration.     

HOW DOES THE TEILHARDIAN VISION OF EVOLUTION COMPARE WITH CONTEMPORARY THEORIES?

Abstract. Teilhard de Chardin's ideas about the mechanisms of biological evolution are revised and their connections with contemporary theories are reported. Teilhard de Chardin's main contribution is the proposal of a new scientific discipline, geobiology—the science of the biosphere evolving as a whole. The main fields of interest of geobiology are reported, and its relationships with contemporary hypotheses, such as Lovelock's Gaia, are discussed. The consequences of this kind of approach are the parallel evolution described as orthogenesis and the presence of canalization phenomena. These Teilhardian hypotheses are discussed in relation to those of the process structuralists and to the novelties of the molecular evolution of the genome. Conclusions are that the mechanisms discussed by Teilhard are presently taken into consideration by contemporary evolutionists in order to construct a new theory of biological evolution.     

EVOLUTION IN THERMODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE: A HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANGLE

Abstract. The recently suggested reformulation of Darwinian evolutionary theory, based on the thermodynamics of self-organizing processes, has strong philosophical implications. My claim is that the main philosophical merit of the thermodynamic approach, made especially clear in J.S. Wicken's work, is its insistence on the law-governed, continuous nature of evolution. I attempt to substantiate this claim following a historical analysis of beginning-of-the-century ideas on evolution and matter-life relationship, in particular, the fitness-of-the-environment-for-life theory of the Harvard physiologist L.J. Henderson. In addition, I point to an epistemological common ground underlying the studies of the “thermodynamics school” and other currently active research groups focusing on the emergence and evolution of biological organization.     

BURHOE AND SHAPLEY: A COMPLEMENTARITY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract. The development of Ralph Wendell Burhoe's philosophy of religion and science occurred in the shadow of the continuing dialogue about the place of science in American society. Like his friend and mentor, Harvard astronomer Harlow Shapley, Burhoe was distressed and intrigued by the troubled postwar relations between science and religion. Unlike Shapley, however, Burhoe sought to create a new modernism, a blend of religion and science that would allow each to develop and complement the other.     

Effects of a variable-ratio conditioning history on sensitivity to fixed-interval contingencies in rats.

We investigated the possibility that human-like fixed-interval performances would appear in rats given a variable-ratio history (Wanchisen, Tatham, & Mooney, 1989). Nine rats were trained under single or compound variable-ratio schedules and then under a fixed-interval 30-s schedule. The histories produced high fixed-interval rates that declined slowly over 90 sessions; differences as a function of the particular history were absent. Nine control animals given only fixed-interval training responded at lower levels initially, but rates increased with training. Despite differences in absolute rates, rates within the intervals and postreinforcement pauses indicated equivalent development of the accelerated response patterns suggestive of sensitivity to fixed-interval contingencies. The finding that the histories elevated rates without retarding development of differentiated patterns suggests that the effective response unit was a burst of several lever presses and that the fixed-interval contingencies acted on these units in the same way as for single responses. Regardless of history, the rats did not manifest the persistent, undifferentiated responding reported for humans under comparable schedules. We concluded that the shortcomings of animal models of human fixed-interval performances cannot be easily remedied by including a variable-ratio conditioning history within the model.