What does reductionism have to do with the validity of DNA testing? What do you mean by 'reductionism'? Which 'postmodernists' do you think wouldn't accept the result of a DNA test? Why is your post formatted like a poem?

Which 'postmodernists' do you think wouldn't accept the result of a DNA test? — csalisbury

Social constructionists might want to challenge the test as anachronistic if the birth in question occurred before the 1980s when testable DNA had yet to be "socially constructed".

Allegedly Bruno Latour has claimed that the ancient pharaoh Ramses II couldn't have died of tuberculosis since it was yet to be socially constructed as a single identifiable disease in the 19th century.

Allegedly Bruno Latour has claimed that the ancient pharaoh Ramses II couldn't have died of tuberculosis since it was yet to be socially constructed as a single identifiable disease in the 19th century. — Jkop

Isn't that a bit like saying that no evolution could have occurred before Darwin?

Yeah I guess. :)

Looked up the Latour essay that claim comes from...it's a little subtler than that allegation suggests, but not by much. It's pretty weak stuff.

Suppose you are a postmodernist philosopher
and also a mother. — Frederick KOH

Such things happen I suppose, but... quelles horreurs! The poor child... "Deconstruct this dirty diaper, mother!"

Everybody loves stomping on postmodernists, but you need to give us a bit more to go on.

Is it reductionist to be outraged if eye-witness accounts
are given equal weight as DNA testing? — Frederick KOH

I'm not sure I can work up outrage over this, but eye-witness testimony tends to be very faulty, so it would makes sense to be at least very alarmed if faulty testimony was preferred over something much more reliable, like DNA testing.

but you need to give us a bit more to go on. — Bitter Crank

What do you mean by 'reductionism'? — csalisbury

That's exactly what I am asking. When whoever it is criticises scientists for being reductionists, what do they mean? I gave a concrete example derivative of one given by Steven Weinberg, asking whether that is what critics mean.

Which 'postmodernists' do you think wouldn't accept the result of a DNA test? — csalisbury

Then you have misunderstood the point. Would they concede that it trumps all other tests/determiners of biological maternity - I gave examples - that is the real question.

People don't like reductionism (or more to the point, what they think reductionism is) because it seems like it diminishes their humanity in some way. "Oh, you know, the reason you love your baby is because your brain produces oxytocin which binds you to your baby. It's just chemicals." That last statement is bogus, but that's what some people think.

They suppose that because the brain employs neurotransmitters to communicate within itself and within the body, that everything is just chemicals. Not so. The real experience comes first, along with real perception, and real registration.

So, the baby is handed to the mother (who has already gone through the major experience of birth). She experiences the face, heft, warmth, and scent of the newborn, and the sensation of the infant at her breast. This experience is what causes the brain to add a couple of oxytocin drops to the mix -- so that the feeling of love and devotion and attachment to her baby will be fully experienced and fixed in place.

You can show somebody a new clothes dryer and squirt a bit of oxytocin up their nose at the same time, but they won't fall in love with the dryer. (Well, normally they don't.) Men have been known to fall in love with a new car. Maybe there's oxytocin in the new car smell.

It's the snake that scares you, not the adrenalin. The adrenalin is there to make sure you get away from the snake really quickly (or pick it up with your bare hands and bite its head off before it bites you).

People don't like reductionism — Bitter Crank

I was thinking more of the sort that gets into books and articles (and this forum).

What does reductionism have to do with the validity of DNA testing? — csalisbury

It has to do with DNA testing trumping over all other ways of determining biological maternity - examples given in original post.

Well look, that is the kind of reductionism that gets into books and this forum. If you were thinking of something else, then give us a good clear example of it.

If you were thinking of something else, then give us a good clear example of it. — Bitter Crank

I was hoping to provoke "anti-reductionists" to comment here.

I was hoping to provoke "anti-reductionists" to comment here. — Frederick KOH

In that case, reductionism is simply a mistake and obviously so.

Some examples:

NeoDarwinism - the fundamental objects of study are replicators subject to variation and selection.
Computation - the fundamental object of study being the universal computer.
Information Theory - The study of counterfactuals (I'm being deliberately tendentious)
Thermodynamics - The theory of steam engines (")

Thus the claim that high level explanations cannot be fundamental is false.

NeoDarwinism - the fundamental objects of study are replicators subject to variation and selection. — tom

If I say "the replicators are the way they are because of chemistry and physics" would I be a reductionist?

Thermodynamics - The theory of steam engines (") — tom

If I say "the relationship between the energy, pressure volume and temperature of a gas in a container can be completely explained by atomic theory and the kinetic theory of gasses" , would I be a reductionist?

Computation - the fundamental object of study being the universal computer.
Information Theory - The study of counterfactuals (I'm being deliberately tendentious) — tom

In these cases, the objects of study are abstract and not coincidentally, they are not considered branches of the natural sciences.

If I say "the replicators are the way they are because of chemistry and physics" would I be a reductionist? — Frederick KOH

Perhaps you should try the reduction? Take a physical theory and demonstrate that replicators, variation, and selection can be reduced to it. If you manage that then Life could be fully explained by, say the Schrödinger equation.

I don't think you will be able to. Life is a phenomenon that as far as we know, requires an explanation at a certain level of emergence, and could be somewhat independent of the underlying physics.

Whooaaa...hold on a minute here. We do agree that the replicators are DNA (and RNA for some lifeforms) right?

If I say "the relationship between the energy, pressure volume and temperature of a gas in a container can be completely explained by atomic theory and the kinetic theory of gasses" , would I be a reductionist? — Frederick KOH

But can you construct a perpetual motion machine of the second kind? Can you improve on the Carnot Cycle?

But can you construct a perpetual motion machine of the second kind? — tom

Statistical mechanics gives an explanation for the second law by postulating that a material is composed of atoms and molecules which are in constant motion. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics#Statistical_mechanics

Can you improve on the Carnot Cycle? — tom

Each step of the cycle depends on the gas laws that as I have mentioned, are explained by atomic theory and the kinetic theory of gasses.

In these cases, the objects of study are abstract and not coincidentally, they are not considered branches of the natural sciences. — Frederick KOH

You think "replicators", "variation", and "selection" are not abstract?

Computers are real things, and the theory of computation has been a branch of physics since 1984. You are similarly wrong about Information Theory.

Computers are real things, and the theory of computation has been a branch of physics since 1984. — tom

In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation

Branch of physics?

You are similarly wrong about Information Theory. — tom

Like mathematics, it is a study of abstractions, in this case abstractions related to information. It is not one of the natural sciences.

You think "replicators", "variation", and "selection" are not abstract? — tom

Abstraction is a tool that can be applied to many areas of inquiry. Be that as it may, the "replicators" are still DNA and RNA if you are studying biological evolution. And they are molecules.

Well look, that is the kind of reductionism that gets into books and this forum. If you were thinking of something else, then give us a good clear example of it. — Bitter Crank

I am coming round to the view that anti-reductionists don't like scientific details or even bother with them.

Whooaaa...hold on a minute here. We do agree that the replicators are DNA (and RNA for some lifeforms) right? — Frederick KOH

Whooooooaaaaaa!

Strictly speaking the the instances of replicators that occur in the Earth's biosphere are genes - portions of DNA that have specific information encoded in them.

However the replicators happen to be instantiated, to be reductionist, one must demonstrate that the existence of replicators is deducible from quantum mechanics, thus rendering use of "replicator" as an explanatory fundamental, nothing more than shorthand.

In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_computation

Maybe you would be willing to accept that that particular branch of mathematics studies, essentially, the Turing Machine, which is a purely abstract entity.

My original claim was:

Computation - the fundamental object of study being the universal computer. — tom

In which I did not mention the Turing Machine, which is abstract, but rather the Universal Computer, which is real.

And then:

Computers are real things, and the theory of computation has been a branch of physics since 1984. — tom

I was wrong in my second claim, the year was 1985. The Universal Computer is a real device, that has certain properties not found in the Turing Machine, due to the laws of physics, which the UC must obey because it is real, and the TM does not because it is abstract.

The theory of computation became a physical theory with this paper:

http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/deutsch85.pdf

But to reduce myself to anti-reduction would be terribly reductionist, don't you think?

;)