It seems to me that our studies thus far have indicated that we cannot understand motivation solely in terms of personal agency\u2014that reference to the individual alone cannot account for the way in which we make decisions. The question thus arises: at what level should we look to understand ourselves? Beyond the body? Within? The readings this week are compelling in that they provide us with a naturalistic alternative to taking individuals (i.e. individual bodies) as the fundamental units of our analysis\u2014an alternative that seems to be defined not by our method of analysis, but rather by natural selection. <\/p>\n
However, there is much disagreement about what the units of selection actually are. As Alexander puts it, the key question is, \u201cSurvival of the fittest what?\u201d Does natural selection act on genes, individuals, kinship groups, behavioral groups, populations, or species? According to Alexander, the \u201cgeneral consensus\u201d is that genes are the usual unit, because \u201cadaptiveness is not appropriately assumed at any higher level of organization than necessary to explain the trait in question.\u201d I am particular interested in how \u201chigher\u201d and \u201cnecessary to explain\u201d are conceived. <\/p>\n
If you are interested in reading the thoughts of some early geneticists about the nature of the gene and genetic explanation (which will make this post much longer than the 1 paragraph you are obligated to read), here are two that you might find interesting:<\/p>\n
In 1909, T. H Morgan\u2014one of the most influential geneticists of the 20th c, and \u201cfather\u201d of the chromosome theory of heredity\u2014wrote an article about genes [i.e., \u201cfactors\u201d] titled, \u201cWhat are \u2018Factors\u2019 in Mendelian Explanations?\u201d Here, he discussed his concern with the new conceptual tools of geneticists, and the nature of genetic explanation: \u201cFacts are being transformed into factors [i.e., genes] at a rapid rate\u2026We work backwards from the facts to the factors, and then, presto! explain the facts by the very factors that we invented to account for them.\u201d While Morgan was not \u201cunappreciative of the distinct advantages\u201d of this method \u201cin handling the facts,\u201d he was concerned that it would lead to a misconception of the nature of the factors. He thought that \u201cthe superior jugglery\u201d used in this line of reasoning could lead some to forget that \u201cthe results are often so excellently \u2018explained\u2019 because the explanation was invented to explain them.\u201d In these ways, Morgan suggested that the genes did not speak for themselves\u2014that they were turned into facts through the method by which they were approached.<\/p>\n
In the 1930s, Richard Goldschmidt (one of the most influential developmental geneticists of the 20th c.) suggested that geneticists should abandon the concept of the gene as a unit of function and explanation: \u201cThe conclusion\u2026is that… no genes are existing, but only points, loci, in the chromosome which have to be arranged in a proper order or pattern to control normal development.\u201d These ideas were radical at first, but eventually became accepted. After Ninth International Congress on Genetics in 1953, an article in Science reported: \u201cit can be said that the most significant trend at the Bellagio Congress was the virtual abandonment of the gene in the classical sense as the object of study. Both the statistical and physiological approaches, to follow the distinction laid down by President Goldschmidt, have instead turned their attention to the properties and functions of more complex systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
As we see in our readings, however, “consensus” rarely exists in science: the gene lives on as a unit of explanation. One reason that I find the history of science interesting is it reveals something about the assumptions in\u2014or alternatives too\u2014what counts as normal science today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It seems to me that our studies thus far have indicated that we cannot understand motivation solely in terms of personal agency\u2014that reference to the individual alone cannot account for the way in which we make decisions. The question thus arises: at what level should we look to understand ourselves? Beyond the body? Within? The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1717,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1717"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/motivation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}