Why do you think Venter's work is relevant to the OOL research? — SophistiCat

Isn't Venter involved in "minimal genome"-type research (i.e. investigating what is the minimum number of genes an organism requires in order to sustain and propagate itself)? That line of research would seem to be at least tangentially relevant to OOL.

What? I'm typing in a phone. You want an exposition on the west's effects on the middle east? — Mongrel

Uh, what? There are a lot of posts flying around in this thread (in an emotionally-charged topic), so perhaps we're talking at cross-purposes, but your reply seems a total non-sequitur. You chastised another poster for blaming Islam in fomenting or promoting certain types of violence, saying it is the perpetrators, not the belief system, which ought to be blamed, as it otherwise located blame in "nowheresville" or whatever.

However, I pointed out that some blame terrorism on Western imperialism, which likewise seems to locate the blame in nowheresville, rather than blaming the perpetrators of the violence. So, my question is, why ought the perpetrators be blamed in the former case, but not in the latter case. Surely, even if an act of terrorism was motivated by Western imperialism, the perpetrators are still to blame, no?

You also have never defined what you meant by "reverse bigotry" as opposed to bigotry simpliciter.

I think it's interesting that the 'origin of life' is the one type of event for which the favoured scientific explanation is that it was a chance occurence. In all other matters, one expects a scientific hypothesis to provide a cause, or a reason, for what it seeks to explain. But not here. — Wayfarer

The fact that something occurred by "chance" doesn't entail that it lacked a cause or explanation: it may simply mean that there was no intentional plan or design underlying its occurrence. A fellow can have a "chance" meeting with the cute girl in his office at the coffee machine (in that the encounter was unplanned by either of them), or he may have memorized her schedule of comings and goings and made sure that he was at the coffee machine at the just the moment he knew she'd be there, so he could "just happen" to bump into her, in which case the encounter was not due to chance.

In any event (as I've pointed out at least once), chance is most definitely admitted into science. It is in fact the default assumption (the "null hypothesis") when a putative connection between two or more variables is examined.

Life, as we would define it, didn't begin in this part of this galaxy until:

a) enough supernovae had produced enough of the heavier elements all the way up to gold and uranium — Bitter Crank

Many of the familiar elements of which organisms are constituted (excepting hydrogen, which was present in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, along with much more limited amounts of other trace elements such as helium and lithium IIRC) are formed by nuclear fusion in the cores of stars (the all-important carbon atom, for instance, is produced by jamming together 3 helium nuclei in the "triple alpha" process). Only the heaviest atoms (which include, as you note, gold) are produced in supernovae.

Yes, that's inconsistent. — Mongrel

Ok...so, will you be revising your view in light of this demonstrated inconsistency?

Many liberals are bigots, but their target is the negative of the set of usual suspects.

I'm afraid I still don't understand. Even ignoring your massive over-generalization about liberals, you have yet to define what you mean by "reverse" bigotry as opposed to bigotry simpliciter.

Claims that terrorism is a result of western intrusion. — Mongrel

So, when Islam is a motivating factor of terrorism (or any other untoward act), then it locates the claim in "nowhere land" to blame Islam rather than the perpetrators, but when Western imperialism is a motivating factor, then one can safely blame that motivating factor rather than the perpetrator? This seems rather inconsistent, wouldn't you say?

What's forward bigotry?

I'm asking what is "reverse" bigotry as opposed to bigotry simpliciter?

I think there's an element of truth to those claims[...] — Mongrel

Which claims?

[...]but it quickly gets lost in the soft racism and reverse bigotry.

What is "reverse bigotry" (as opposed to "forward" bigotry)?

This is the problem, tom: if you blame the religion for the atrocities, it would appear that you're taking the individual human actors off the hook. They aren't to blame. The real villain is the religion which failed to condemn their actions.

Did you not just locate the blame in nowhere land? — Mongrel

Presumably this response would apply to those who blame terrorism on, say, Western imperialism or depressed economic conditions? Do those claims likewise try to locate blame in "nowhere land," rather than blaming the perpetrators?

There was this old story about the unequal distribution of talents, to the effect that what is meaningful is what you do with what you've got... — unenlightened

That's also what people say about penis size...usually by people with small penises.

The counterfactual scenario is completely inaccessible. For example if I say "If the Germans had won WW2" How is it possible to say anything true about this scenario? There is no truth of the matter because X didn't happen. — Andrew4Handel

I've myself wondered if a robust theory of truth such as the correspondence theory can adequately incorporate counterfactual statements into their stable (not to mention certain types of future-tensed statements).

If I say, "if I were to strike this porcelain dish with a hammer, then it would shatter," or "if I had struck this porcelain dish with a hammer, then it would have shattered," both of these utterances seem to be truth-apt (that is, possessing a truth value), yet what do they "correspond" to? There is no event or state of affairs to which these utterances map onto (or to which they fail to do so), and yet they seem quite clearly true, given our knowledge of hammers and the mechanical properties of thin sheets of porcelain. Likewise, they would just as clearly seem to be false had I substituted "titanium" for "porcelain."

Perhaps something like the coherence theory of truth is better-equipped to handle them.

Just to be clear on terminology here, "Islamism" specifically refers to a militant (sometimes violent) brand of Islam; thus opposition to Islamism can be regarded as no vice, I should think. Given the context in which you discuss the term and the overall tenor of your post, I think you meant just to refer to those who are anti-Islam simpliciter.

Before that had been paid off, Reagan's and Bush I's military programs (like Star Wars) greatly increased debt again. After Star Wars, it was Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Great Recession which jacked up federal spending to the current very high debt levels. — Bitter Crank

A little-remembered moment from the GW Bush presidency was that, shortly after getting into office, he ordered the military to restart R&D into "Star Wars," leading to god knows how much more money pissed down the drain on that boondoggle. Then 9/11 happened, and, well, the rest is history. Depressing, depressing history.

Star Wars still has its defenders, though. Some claim that our outrageous military expenditures were actually an economic weapon against the USSR, as the latter bankrupted itself trying to keep pace with our spending, thereby hastening its downfall. At least one conservative commentator (i.e. Dennis Prager) has claimed that Israel's mostly-successful Iron Dome missile shield vindicates the concept of Star Wars. Because, of course, defending a nation the size of New Jersey from small missiles armed with conventional explosives using a ground-based missile system is the exact same thing as shooting down nuclear-armed ICBMs with x-ray lasers fired from orbiting satellites to protect an entire continent.

Yeah, right. Instead of "had their mother been celibate", why go even further and use the substitution, "had their mother never existed"? Obviously, the argument needs to begin with a pregnant woman, otherwise it will quickly degenerate into witless absurdity. — Dredge

Because no person can be held culpable for their not existing. You seek to accuse women of "snuffing out a life" by means of a certain action. As I demonstrated, the same result follows by means of a certain inaction (i.e. celibacy, in this case). Ergo, celibate women are equally culpable for "snuffing out a human life" as women who obtain abortions. Non-existent people cannot "snuff out" anything (one must exist in order to do the snuffing).

I understand that that is not a conclusion you intended, but you need to add more to your argument for it to go through.

That sounds violent. — Mongrel

It's less violent than flogging the dolphin.

So, to claim that the problem is that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity is not only to make a claim that is not supported by evidence (show me a study where levels of violence in majority Islamic countries are found to be significantly higher than those in majority Christian countries where other socio-cultural variables are accounted for) but also to prevent yourself from having any hope of finding a solution. Which is fine only for those who don't really want one. — Baden

Speaking for myself, I've never said that Islam is inherently more violent (in terms of its scripture, say; though, as others have pointed out, its principal figure was a bit more violent than Jesus in his lifetime), I've said that it is more violent than any other major world religion in the 21st century.

To say that it's the social context, and therefore the contemporary religious interpretation that matters, is not necessarily to say that the religious motivation is unimportant. — jamalrob

Plenty of commentators do assert this, though. Reza Aslan has made a cottage industry of such claims, for instance.

I think it's silly, ahistorical--and from a practical standpoint counterproductive and damaging--to say that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity, but I think it's also silly, counterproductive and damaging to claim that, for example, Isis is not Islamic.

I agree: historically almost no religion has clean hands, and I've flogged the horrors of Christianity many times.

(And personally, I find Islamic critiques of Western morality more than a little cogent.) — Wayfarer

Because of course, "the West" is monolithic, as much as "the Islamic world," right? People in Sweden hold the exact same values as those in Poland, who hold the same values as those in Australia, who hold the exact same values as those in Greece, who hold the exact same values as those in the U.S.A.

You often speak sympathetically about condemnations of the supposed immorality of the West, but I'm never quite sure what you're referring to. You dislike materialism, but that seems to refer to philosophical materialism as much as consumerist materialism. You seem to not like homosexuality very much, as you've made denigrating comments about gays, so perhaps you're not on board with the rise of LGBT rights one finds in many Western countries, but I'm not sure where this source of large-scale immorality is coming from. Quite frankly, most Muslim-majority countries don't really have a moral leg to stand on in criticizing the West.

No wonder some don't want to talk about history as it demonstrates unequivocally that the religion itself is not the primary issue; it's the socio-cultural context in which the religion is put to work that matters most (as VagabondSpectre has pointed out). What's left over is pretty small beans by comparison. — Baden

This is a prime example of the sort of asymmetry of reasoning which is often applied in such cases: if a person (or group or culture, etc) performs some act, and is motivated in doing so by a mix of religious and political aims, then the religious motivations are marginalized or dismissed altogether (and it's blamed solely on historical context, globalism, etc. - and so much the better if the West can be blamed in some way for fomenting or establishing said historical context). This, of course, usually applies when people are carrying out heinous acts in the name of religion; when they're carrying out beneficent acts, then religion can comfortably be said to be the sole or primary motivating factor. Religion, of course, can only motivate good behavior; otherwise, it's not real religion.

However, why can the converse not follow equally well, i.e. when a person acts from a mix of religious and political motives, then the political motives can be marginalized or dismissed?

So, I am very interested to see your methodology as to how you separate out the relative weights of these various motivations, allowing you to determine that religion is the insignificant factor, and then safely discard it.

You could ask them. You said:

Atheists don't think abortion amounts to murder. — TheMadFool

The point is that presumably everyone (or nearly so) who is pro-choice doesn't believe that abortion constitutes murder, whether they're Christians, atheists, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, or whatever. You were drawing a dichotomy between the supposed proscription of abortion in Christianity and the supposedly atheistic belief that abortion isn't murder, while seemingly ignoring the fact that some Christians are pro-choice.

As to how they reconcile these beliefs (even assuming that Christian theology, doctrine, dogma, or creeds uniformly oppose abortion), I don't know; that presumably varies on a person-by-person basis. How does one deal with cognitive dissonance in general? Usually by compartmentalizing one's beliefs.

Man, why'd we revive this thread only to write a bunch of stupid? — Heister Eggcart

As your post has arguably contributed less to this thread than any recent comment, perhaps you are the primary contributor to the problem which is the subject of your question.

Well, killing the baby amounts to murder which I hope is forbidden in Christianity.

Atheists don't think abortion amounts to murder. — TheMadFool

You do realize that there are some pro-choice Christians, correct?

Reductionism has been an extremely successful methodology, but even a reductionist must be puzzled that there are so many branches of science. — tom

Some thinkers sympathetic to reductionism, e.g. E.O. Wilson in his Consilience, believe that the divisions between the natural sciences (and perhaps even between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities) are merely artifacts of our current knowledge base, and that such divisions will eventually fall away as the putative deeper connections between these fields' respective theories become better-understood.

However, in his review of Consilience, Jerry Fodor pointed out that, far from reducing the number of scientific fields, building such theoretical bridges can just as often spawn new fields (e.g. neuroeconomics), which proliferate faster than university deans can keep up with them.

Ask anyone if they would have lived their life if their mother had an abortion instead of giving birth ro them. The anwser would of course be "No". Therefore one can argue that abortion is the snuffing out of a human life. Isn't the cold-blooded, premeditated snuffing out of a human life murder? — Dredge

There seems a non-sequitur here. I will condense your hypothetical question and answer ("No") into one statement, which you believe implies the subsequent statement:

(1) A given person P could not have been born (a necessary condition for "living one's life") had their mother had an abortion, therefore abortion is the snuffing out of a human life.

However, the substance of the conclusion also follows (mutatis mutandis) if, say, celibacy is substituted for "abortion" in the single premise provided here:

(2) A given person P could not have been born (a necessary condition for "living one's life") had their mother been celibate, therefore celibacy is the snuffing out of a human life.

I think that the conclusion in (2) quite obviously does not follow (no reasonable person can claim - I hope! - that celibacy equates with murder), and yet the logical force (or lack thereof) which attaches to (1) should also attach to (2), given that we've only substituted the relevant terms.

Some of the posts in this thread seem to suffer from a confusion as to what exactly is being asked in the OP (perhaps the OP was not spelled out in sufficient detail). If the question is, say, whether Islam or Christianity is the more violent religion, then I don't know if the question translates to how many violent crimes are committed by Christians, as opposed to Muslims, even if considered on a per capita basis (including whichever other metrics we deem to be relevant, including number of intra- or interstate wars begun by Christian- or Muslim-majority countries or whatever).

The fact that some person P commits an act of violence, and that P is member of some religion R, it doesn't follow that P committed said act of violence because of his religion. The more relevant criterion is how many adherents of a religion commit violence in the name of said religion, or due to said religion's doctrines.

This is not to say that such a criterion is a simple one to determine: for one thing, there are "No true [Muslim, Christian, etc] would do X"-style claims to contend with. For another, there are coding issues tied to ambiguities as to what exactly constitutes religiously-motivated violence. If there are religious fault lines between two groups involved in violent conflict, does that count as at least partially religiously-motivated violence even if the conflict is not inherently doctrinal or theological in nature? (The "Troubles" in Northern Ireland and the Balkan Wars come to mind here as such cases.)

How do we honestly confront the problem? Genocide them for thought crimes? Serious question... isn't that crazy asshole a maniac? — Wosret

Wosret, as this post immediately followed mine and contains a question, I think it may be directed to me, but, if so, I am unsure what you're asking. Which maniacal asshole do you speak of? Sam Harris? Harris has never advocated "genocide" in the Muslim world, for thought crimes or for anything else (some who distort his views erroneously suggest that he has advocated a nuclear first strike on the Muslim world, but this is not the case).

One source of distortion are those who throw a blanket of political correctness over any possible criticism, meaning that any discussion at all is automatically categorised as racist.

The opposite problem is the various groups who are indeed Islamophobic and who depict it as irredeemably violent and beyond hope of reform. — Wayfarer

Indeed. As Sam Harris has said, it may increasingly be the case that the only people who are willing to honestly confront the problem of radical Islam are far-right xenophobes and racists. The left has simply become totally complicit on this issue, making a bizarre set of bedfellows with religious theocrats who hold decidedly anti-liberal views on many issues (so long as said theocrats come from a place where the people are poorer and browner than most people in the West - Christian theocracy would never be tolerated, of course).

Great shot. That is perfectly illustrative of humans' proclivity to see faces, even where there clearly are none. Given how avidly and readily we do so, there must have been an incredibly strong selection pressure in our ancestral past for detecting and recognizing other people's faces (the fact that we also apparently have a region of the brain dedicated at least in part to facial recognition - i.e. the fusiform gyrus - speaks to such importance).

Sheldrake says that 'nature forms habits' e.g. when a new crystal is synthesised for the first time, it takes much longer than on subsequent occasions when it is formed again. This is becuase the initial formation has started to form the 'habit'. I can't help but think this is related to Peirce's ideas of how regularities are initially formed out of "tychism" — Wayfarer

If by "synthesized," Sheldrake is referring to a man-made crystal, one hardly need appeal to morphic resonance to explain why it may take longer to synthesize it on the first occasion than on subsequent occasions. In science, as with most other areas of human endeavor, feats generally become easier with practice, and with the collective practice of the scientific community. It's not nature per se (in the sense of the laws or regularities which govern the behavior of naturalistic entities) which is changing, but only the investigators' expertise.

Note that it's heresy because of its subject matter - not because of the methodology. — Wayfarer

I concur with the point you're making here (shocking, I know). I believe it's misguided to define "pseudoscience" solely or primarily by its subject matter, as opposed to its methodology. (I don't necessarily believe that there's a hard-and-fast line between the two, but there are no doubt unambiguous cases which drop out on both sides of the line).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/

In his otherwise sober book Consciousness and the Brain (which, fair warning, is somewhat tough going even for a "pop" neuroscience book; actually I'm not sure if it's all that "pop," as it's packed with technical details. But I digress...) author Stanislas Dehaene derisively refers to those conducting experiments to detect out of body experiences (by placing cards containing certain symbols near the ceiling in operating rooms, where they could only be seen from a vantage point near the ceiling, looking down) as "pseudoscientists."

That bugged me a bit because those investigators' methodology seems prima facie perfectly sound from a scientific perspective, eliminating as it does certain confounding variables, such as the possibility that whatever information the subject acquires during his supposed OOB came from subconsciously hearing chatter in the OR while coming into or out of consciousness.

Perhaps the notion of OOBs is completely spurious (or perhaps not), but one should not dismiss the possibility out of hand, lest science fall into the dogma and close-mindedness which it decries in other spheres of human thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness_and_the_Brain

Peirce seems to have shared these sentiments:

Tell me, upon sufficient authority, that all cerebration depends upon movements of neurites that strictly obey certain physical laws, and that thus all expressions of thought, both external and internal, receive a physical explanation, and I shall be ready to believe you. But if you go on to say that this explodes the theory that my neighbour and myself are governed by reason, and are thinking beings, I must frankly say that it will not give me a high opinion of your intelligence. — CP 6.465, 1908 — aletheist

Interesting quote. You may be aware that a family of theistic arguments (generally, the argument from reason) make the claim which Peirce here rejects, i.e. that beings whose mental processes are wholly governed by naturalistic or material forces thereby have cause to doubt the reliability of their ratiocinations.

Are you saying that corporate law is immoral?

I mentioned earlier that the concept was a significant factor in the emergence of European nation states. If you do mean to say that the concept of the corporation is immoral, you're indicting the whole global shebang.

I would counter that it's not corporations. They just act in their own interests. It's the lack of global law that allows them to exploit us munchkins. — Mongrel

BC can speak for himself, but I took him to be saying that corporate law was amoral, in that it deals with certain transactional issues which don't really touch upon morality (unlike, say, criminal law).

Aagin you merely display your narrow view on the meaning of the term 'art'. This is going around in circles now, and you have attempted to answer none of the difficult, more salient questions I posed for you; so I'm done with this 'conversation'. — John

I agree that this has not been the most productive conversation. Perhaps the fault is mine. No hard feelings.

One can make objective claims about bodies. — unenlightened

One can also make objective claims about minds, on which the entire science of psychology is based.

I have not talked about definitions, that was you. Whenever I ask about persons you point to bodies, because science can recognise bodies but not persons. I haven't defined persons myself, and I have not asked you to.

1. If persons are bodies or bodily processes, then science can study persons.
2. If persons are not bodies or bodily processes, then science has a problem studying them.
3. So science necessarily assumes that persons are bodies or bodily processes.

As you said above, science can study causal processes. If the person known as God has interacted with the world in a causal manner (say, to drown the sinful in a great deluge, answer intercessory prayers, or help the Patriots win the Super Bowl), then there ought to be evidence of such interactions. Your talk about "bodily processes" is a red herring.

And then after much study of the evidence, and some complex theorising, it concludes that persons are bodies or bodily processes. And from that circularity, we proceed, to announce that there can be no personal god. Which is true IF persons are bodies or bodily processes, but untrue if they are something else.

Now how about you try to engage a little with my points rather than your re-boiling of them into your points.

If I am failing to engage with your points, perhaps we are talking past each other because the argument you summarize above is quite puzzling, and doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to what I am claiming.

I might, but I won't. Your boiling is a straw man. Science can study causes, mechanisms, bodies, and jolly good it is for doing so. It does so by methodically eliminating the subjective, which is personhood. This method disqualifies it from talking about persons, as distinct from bodies. — unenlightened

This is non-responsive. As I pointed out, by your criteria, science cannot study anything at all, as it is in the business of only elucidating mechanisms, not in offering definitions, and it cannot study what it cannot define. Ignoring this reductio won't make it go away.

Likewise, you have failed to deal with my point that one can make objective claims about persons. The fact that persons are subjects doesn't render the very concept of personhood subjective (if it were, there would be little point in philosophers arguing over it). Julius Caesar was purportedly a person, complete with consciousness and its attendant subjectivity, and yet it's perfectly possible to make objective claims about him.

If Dawkins and you are claiming that there cannot be a god that is a complex expression of genes and environment plus whatever other mechanisms you wish to add, then there is probably not a theologian on the planet that would disagree.

Dawkins says that, on the balance of the evidence, there is probably no God.

What is a person?
— unenlightened

But this is where I came in, and so this is where the argumentative circle is complete, and since you nor Dawkins have an answer, there is no content to your pontifications, and this is where i leave you to it.

Again a non-sequitur. Your claim boils down to: it is not within the domain of science to define X, therefore science cannot study X. At the very least, you need to provide some argumentation for this position.

You might also address my point that, given your criterion, science can study nothing at all.

This is a herring the colour of ripe strawberries in good light. Whether Julius Caesar existed or not is an entirely separate issue from what it means to be a person. — unenlightened

And? You made the non-sequitur claim that, because defining personhood is best left to philosophy, that therefore science can't study claims pertaining to persons. That doesn't follow.

The method of science is to eliminate the subjective and personal; it does not and cannot take account of them.

One can speak objectively about persons, including whether or not they exist. Whether Caesar was a real person is a question for science to answer (with "science" broadly construed to mean empiricism), and is about as objective as anything else.

Dawkins mistakes a methodological assumption for a proven fact, and your quote simply adds a little 'complexity' to the mechanistic reduction of the person.

In other words, you made an erroneous claim about what Dawkins believes (i.e. that persons are solely a result of their gene expression), I refuted that by means of a quote, and you toss that off as it merely adding "a little complexity." Please feel free to admit your error.

Empiricism cannot evaluate claims pertaining to persons unless it recognises the existence of persons as something other than the existence of bodies and mechanisms. But it cannot do that.

Sure it can. Julius Caesar was a person. Science can evaluate, for instance, the historicity of his existence. Ergo, science can evaluate claims pertaining to person. QED.

And, as I point out above (and which you seem to have ignored), by your criterion science cannot study anything, because science is merely concerned with elucidating mechanisms, and defining an object doesn't qualify as such, and science is supposedly unable to study what it can't define.

Yes I see we're definitely not coming from the same place. That's why I brought to your attention, how absurd your opinion appears from my perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Know that your opinion appears equally absurd from mine. X-)

Sorry, I was rushed and didn't explain myself well. Let me just clarify what I mean. The plumber, qua plumber, is not an artist, because they are taught to follow specific techniques, building codes, and practises dictated by the union. Trades people qua trades people, are not artists, for the very reason that they must follow specific dogma to be accepted as part of that trade. But if a plumber is in a particular situation which requires creativity, I think it is generally accepted that in this particular instance the plumber is acting as an artist. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok. I believe I understand your position, and you give a good account of it, but I just don't think we're coming from the same place on this issue.

Kin to Un's point is that there is no scientific definition of divinity. Therefore divinity is not a scientific issue. — Mongrel

Firstly, even if divinity is not a matter for the natural sciences, it doesn't follow that they idea can't be at all critiqued by empirical investigation, e.g. historically.

Secondly, in following Un's reasoning to its conclusion, science cannot study anything, as science can apparently study only what it can define, and, as it is concerned solely with mechanisms, it cannot define anything.

I'm not interested in Dawkins' beliefs, but in his writings. — unenlightened

His beliefs as expressed in his writings do not support the contention that he believes that persons are nothing but the expression of genes.

From The Selfish Gene (underlining mine):

As an analogy, think of the influence of a fertilizer, say nitrate, on the
growth of wheat. Everybody knows that wheat plants grow bigger in the
presence of nitrate than in its absence. But nobody would be so foolish
as to claim that, on its own, nitrate can make a wheat plant. Seed, soil,
sun, water, and various minerals are obviously all necessary as well. But
if all these other factors are held constant, and even if they are allowed to
vary within limits, addition of nitrate will make the wheat plants grow
bigger. So it is with single genes in the development of an embryo.
Embryonic development is controlled by an interlocking web of
relationships so complex that we had best not contemplate it. No one
factor, genetic or environmental, can be considered as the single 'cause'
of any part of a baby. All parts of a baby have a near infinite number of
antecedent causes. But a difference between one baby and another, for
example a difference in length of leg, might easily be traced to one or a
few simple antecedent differences, either in environment or in genes. It is
differences that matter in the competitive struggle to survive; and it is
genetically- controlled differences that matter in evolution. — Selfish Gene

There is no science of persons, because science is concerned only with mechanisms. You suggested that my characterisation was unfair, I gave you a quote to support it. I dare say the man is humane enough to his wife, but that is not what he writes about.

As I said, the notion of defining personhood is a philosophical question, but it doesn't follow that empiricism can't study or evaluate claims pertaining to persons, including whether or not they exist. Julius Caesar (as described in historical sources) was undeniably a "person," and yet a historian, employing the methods of empiricism, is perfectly poised to study whether or not Julius Caesar actually existed, or whether he was a mythic figure, etc.

If science is concerned only with mechanisms, then by your lights science also cannot study fruit flies, because a scientist is in no position to describe the necessary and sufficient conditions of what is a fruit fly.