Explanation in morphology

Summary In biology, and particularly in morphology, various types of explanation are found,e.g. causal, teleological, historical, etc.In this article an attempt has been made to analyse the relations between the various explanations to strive for an encompassing explanatory theory.The general structure of the explanatory theories appeared to be very similar, but the terms defining the phenomena and the types of the relations within the theories differ. To obtain a unifying theory it is necessary to develop methods to connect or transform the different elements.An important aspect is that the definition of selected phenomena (terms) depends on the explanation pursued.Lecture presented for the Netherlands Society for Theoretical Biology, December, 1971.     

Natural selection and the conditions for existence: representational vs. conditional teleology in biological explanation

Human intentional action, including the design and use of artifacts, involves the prior mental representation of the goal (end) and the means to achieve that goal. This representation is part of the efficient cause of the action, and thus can be used to explain both the action and the achievement of the end. This is intentional teleological explanation. More generally, teleological explanation that depends on the real existence of a representation of the goal (and the means to achieve it) can be called representational teleological explanation. Such explanations in biology can involve both external representations (e.g., ideas in the mind of God) and internal representations (souls, vital powers, entelechies, developmental programs, etc.). However, another type of explanation of intentional action (or any other process) is possible. Given that an action achieving a result occurs, the action can be explained as fulfilling the necessary conditions (means) for that result (end), and, reciprocally, the result explained by the occurrence of those necessary conditions. This is conditional teleological explanation. For organisms, natural selection is often understood metaphorically as the designer, intentionally constructing them for certain ends. Unfortunately, this metaphor is often taken rather too literally, because it has been difficult to conceive of another way to relate natural selection to the process of evolution. I argue that combining a conditional teleological explanation of organisms and of evolution provides such an alternative. This conditional teleology can be grounded in existence or survival. Given that an organism exists, we can explain its existence by the occurrence of the necessary conditions for that existence. This principle of the 'conditions for existence' was introduced by Georges Cuvier in 1800, and provides a valid, conditional teleological method for explaining organismal structure and behavior. From an evolutionary perspective, the conditions for existence are the range of boundary conditions within which the evolutionary process must occur. Moreover, evolutionary change itself can be subjected to conditional teleological explanation, because natural selection theory is primarily a theory about the relation between the conditions for the existence of organisms and the conditions for the existence of traits in populations. I show that failure to distinguish representational from conditional teleological explanation has confused previous attempts to clarify the relation of teleology to biology.     

Adaptation and novelty: teleological explanations in evolutionary biology

Knives, birds' wings, and mountain slopes are used for certain purposes: cutting, flying, and climbing. A bird's wings have in common with knives that they have been 'designed' for the purpose they serve, which purpose accounts for their existence, whereas mountain slopes have come about by geological processes independently of their uses for climbing. A bird's wings differ from a knife in that they have not been designed or produced by any conscious agent; rather, the wings, like the slopes, are outcomes of natural processes without any intentional causation. Evolutionary biologists use teleological language and teleological explanations. I propose that this use is appropriate, because teleological explanations are hypotheses that can be subject to empirical testing. The distinctiveness of teleological hypotheses is that they account for the existence of a feature in terms of the function it serves; for example, wings have evolved and persist because flying is beneficial to birds by increasing their chances of surviving and reproducing. Features of organisms that are explained with teleological hypotheses include structures, such as wings; processes, such as development from egg to adult; and behaviours, such as nest building. A proximate explanation of these features is the function they serve; an ultimate explanation that they all share is their contribution to the reproductive fitness of the organisms. I distinguish several kinds of teleological explanations, such as natural and artificial, as well as bounded and unbounded, some of which but not others apply to biological explanations.     

Darwin was a teleologist

It is often claimed that one of Darwin's chief accomplishments was to provide biology with a non-teleological explanation of adaptation. A number of Darwin's closest associates, however, and Darwin himself, did not see it that way. In order to assess whether Darwin's version of evolutionary theory does or does not employ teleological explanation, two of his botanical studies are examined. The result of this examination is that Darwin sees selection explanations of adaptations as teleological explanations. The confusion in the nineteenth century about Darwin's attitude to teleology is argued to be a result of Darwin's teleological explanations not conforming to either of the dominant philosophical justifications of teleology at that time. Darwin's explanatory practices conform well, however, to recent defenses of the teleological character of selection explanations.I would like to thank John Beatty, David Hull and one of this journal's readers for constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

Intention Seekers: Conspiracist Ideation and Biased Attributions of Intentionality

Conspiracist beliefs are widespread and potentially hazardous. A growing body of research suggests that cognitive biases may play a role in endorsement of conspiracy theories. The current research examines the novel hypothesis that individuals who are biased towards inferring intentional explanations for ambiguous actions are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories, which portray events as the exclusive product of intentional agency. Study 1 replicated a previously observed relationship between conspiracist ideation and individual differences in anthropomorphisation. Studies 2 and 3 report a relationship between conspiracism and inferences of intentionality for imagined ambiguous events. Additionally, Study 3 again found conspiracist ideation to be predicted by individual differences in anthropomorphism. Contrary to expectations, however, the relationship was not mediated by the intentionality bias. The findings are discussed in terms of a domain-general intentionality bias making conspiracy theories appear particularly plausible. Alternative explanations are suggested for the association between conspiracism and anthropomorphism.     

Comparison of Remote Versus In-Person Behavioral Consultation for Treatment of Canine Separation Anxiety

To investigate the validity of remote consultation for treatment of canine separation anxiety, this study compared the efficacy of 2 types of behavioral services offered by Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (TCSVM): (a) “PetFax,” a remote consultation service in which dog caregivers (owners) and a certified applied animal behaviorist correspond via fax or email and (b) in-person clinic consultation, which requires that owners bring their dogs to the Animal Behavior Clinic at TCSVM to consult with a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, a veterinary behavior resident, or a certified applied animal behaviorist. The study tested 4 variables for significant differences between PetFax users and clinic visitors: (a) pre- and posttreatment anxiety scores; (b) owner-reported improvement; (c) percentage of rehomed dogs, dogs relinquished or euthanized because of separation anxiety; and (d) clarity of communication with owners. The study found no significant differences between the groups. Difference scores and owner reports demonstrated substantial reduction in separation anxiety in both groups. Results indicate remote consultation is a valid way for behavioral professionals to share behavior modification advice with owners regarding canine separation anxiety.     

Comparison of remote versus in-person behavioral consultation for treatment of canine separation anxiety

To investigate the validity of remote consultation for treatment of canine separation anxiety, this study compared the efficacy of 2 types of behavioral services offered by Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (TCSVM): (a) “PetFax,” a remote consultation service in which dog caregivers (owners) and a certified applied animal behaviorist correspond via fax or email and (b) in-person clinic consultation, which requires that owners bring their dogs to the Animal Behavior Clinic at TCSVM to consult with a board-certified veterinary behaviorist, a veterinary behavior resident, or a certified applied animal behaviorist. The study tested 4 variables for significant differences between PetFax users and clinic visitors: (a) pre- and posttreatment anxiety scores; (b) owner-reported improvement; (c) percentage of rehomed dogs, dogs relinquished or euthanized because of separation anxiety; and (d) clarity of communication with owners. The study found no significant differences between the groups. Difference scores and owner reports demonstrated substantial reduction in separation anxiety in both groups. Results indicate remote consultation is a valid way for behavioral professionals to share behavior modification advice with owners regarding canine separation anxiety.     

L’indéterminisme de l’automatisme mental dans sa relation au hasard et à la contingence dans l’histoire de la psychiatrie

This article questions the epistemic relationships of causal indeterminism in de Clérambault’s automatisme mental and Janet’s psychological automatism, including the concept of chance (tychè & automaton) as it evolved from Aristotlés Physics to the works of Cournot in the 19th century. De Clérambault conceived mental automatism as a causal anideism, enabling him to regard the self-organized morphogenesis of hallucinatory psychotic delusions from initial conditions, which express the apparent properties of fortuity, arbitrariness, and contingency. Janet refutes the postulate of the anideism of mental automatism in favour of a disorder in the regulation of action caused by specific feelings, and Ey envisions an accident in a hypothetical body plan based on a teleological explanation that is organ-based but not mechanical. These doctrines, however, support an objectivistic and naturalistic point of view regarding the apparent indeterminism of the thought automaton. They must not ignore the subject’s intrinsic perspective, which operates on the order of the tyché and makes it possible to analyze mental automatism, such as the subject’s refusal to recognize the possibility that a part of contingency and intentional indeterminism can emerge spontaneously in the course of thought and its inner language, and that this spontaneity could be the result of an unconscious choice.     

Darwin's concept of final cause: neither new nor trivial

Darwin'suse of final cause accords with the Aristotelian idea of finalcauses as explanatory types – as opposed to mechanical causes, which arealways particulars. In Wright's consequence etiology, anadaptation is explained by particular events, namely, its past consequences;hence, that etiology is mechanistic at bottom. This justifies Ghiselin'scharge that such versions of teleology trivialize the subject, But a purelymechanistic explanation of an adaptation allows it to appear coincidental.Patterns of outcome, whether biological or thermodynamic, cannot be explainedbytracing causal chains, even were that possible. They are explicanda of aspecialkind. The form of their explanation, in statistical mechanics or by naturalselection, is not captured by statistical variants of the covering-law model orrelated models of explanation. In them as in classical teleology, types ofoutcome are cited to explain why there are outcomes of those types. But onlywhen types are explanatory by being selected for, as inexplanations of animal and human behavior as well as in Darwin's theory ofnatural selection, but not in statistical mechanics, is the explanationteleological. Darwin's theory is nontrivially teleological.     

Developmental plasticity and evolutionary explanations

Developmental plasticity looks like a promising bridge between ecological and developmental perspectives on evolution. Yet, there is no consensus on whether plasticity is part of the explanation for adaptive evolution or an optional “add‐on” to genes and natural selection. Here, we suggest that these differences in opinion are caused by differences in the simplifying assumptions, and particular idealizations, that enable evolutionary explanation. We outline why idealizations designed to explain evolution through natural selection prevent an understanding of the role of development, and vice versa. We show that representing plasticity as a reaction norm conforms with the idealizations of selective explanations, which can give the false impression that plasticity has no explanatory power for adaptive evolution. Finally, we use examples to illustrate why evolutionary explanations that include developmental plasticity may in fact be more satisfactory than explanations that solely refer to genes and natural selection.     

Herbivores, the Functional Diversity of Plants Species, and the Cycling of Nutrients in Ecosystems

Numerous investigators have suggested that herbivores almost always increase rates of nutrient and energy flow through terrestrial ecosystems by returning to the soil fecal material and urine with faster turnover rate than shed plant litter. These previous theories and models always treat the producer compartment as a homogenous pool. Essentially, they assume that consumers feed through a pureed cream of vegetable soup. However, many field observations and experiments have shown that consumers feed selectively (i.e., in a cafeteria) and that consumer choice is made on the same chemical basis that determines decomposition rates. Plants that are preferred food sources often have higher nutrient content, higher growth rates, and faster decomposition rates. As consumption reduces dominance of these species in favor of unpreferred species with slower decomposition, rates of nutrient cycling and energy flow should therefore decline. We analyze a model in which the consumer is given a choice among producers that vary in nutrient uptake rates, rates of nutrient return to decomposers, and consumer preference, and which is parameterized for plants and consumers characteristic of boreal regions. In this model, in an open, well-mixed system with one consumer and two such producers, the nutrient/energy flow will not exceed that of a system without the consumer. If the consumer has a choice between two such producers, it must choose one plant over the other at a greater ratio than that between the two plants in uptake and decay rates. In contrast, in a closed system the consumer must be less selective to coexist with the two plants. The system behavior is determined by the level of nutrient return through the consumer and the differences between the plants in nutrient uptake rates and consumer preference. Species richness affects properties of this model system to the extent that species are functionally distinct (i.e., have different rate constants) in a multivariate space of life history traits (i.e., nutrient uptake and palatability). We suggest that the biochemical variability of plant tissues that simultaneously determines both consumer preference and decomposition rates is an essential feature of food webs that cannot be ignored. Thus, ecosystem models should, at minimum, consider more than one producer type with consumer preference.     

Teleosemantics Without Natural Selection

Ruth Millikan and others advocate theories which attempt to naturalize wide mental content (e.g. beliefs’ truth conditions) in terms of function in the teleological sense, where a function is constituted in part by facts concerning past natural selection involving ancestors of a current entity. I argue that it is a mistake to base content on selection. Content should instead be based on functions which though historical, do not involve selection. I sketch an account of such functions.     

Hierarchies and causal relationships in interpretative models of the neoplastic process

The aim of this paper is to present a critical analysis of the kind of biological systems identified in the main explanatory theories of cancer (i.e. Somatic Mutation Theory and Tissue Organization Field Theory) and how references to the hierarchical organization of these biological systems are used in their explanatory arguments. I will discuss these aspects in terms of the isolation of the "locus of control" (Bechtel and Richardson 2010); that is, the point at which decisions are made shaping the explanatory endeavour. In fact, the current view of the neoplastic process, not as a static circumstance but as an evolving molecular and cellular process, makes it evident that the choice of the right level of analysis is not self-evident. This focus clarifies some epistemological reasons for the divergence between reductionist and organicist accounts and seems to suggest that the basis for distinctions among causal relationships that scientists sometimes make can be found in the hierarchical character of complex biological systems. I will argue that these different causal relationships reflect different levels of epistemic concern.     

Behavior as a social construction

Behavior analysis is examined from a social constructionist perspective. Constructionism is first defined and contrasted with a generic positivistic image of science. Behavior analysis, especially the matching law, is then viewed from both perspectives. The actual practice of behavior analysis (as opposed to the philosophy of radical behaviorism) more strongly resembles positivist than constructionist views. This alignment between behavior analysis and positivism emerges more sharply when positivist and constructionist perspectives are compared on the relation between science and music. Charles Rosen has identified how the classical style of musical composition and performance depended on 18th century keyboard technology, and a constructionist view sees the matching law as reflecting mid 20th century technology and culture in much the same way as it sees, say Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, as reflecting late 18th century culture. Behavior analysts, who often behave as though they see the matching law as an objective, impersonal, stable, hard, cold, incontrovertibly true fact, appear more inclined than constructionists to see a fundamental difference between the matching law and Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, to which they would attribute few if any of these characteristics. Possible implications are derived for tolerance in science.     

Why one model is never enough: a defense of explanatory holism

Traditionally, a scientific model is thought to provide a good scientific explanation to the extent that it satisfies certain scientific goals that are thought to be constitutive of explanation (e.g. generating understanding, identifying mechanisms, making predictions, identifying high-level patterns, allowing us to control and manipulate phenomena). Problems arise when we realize that individual scientific models cannot simultaneously satisfy all the scientific goals typically associated with explanation. A given model’s ability to satisfy some goals must always come at the expense of satisfying others. This has resulted in philosophical disputes regarding which of these goals are in fact necessary for explanation, and as such which types of models can and cannot provide explanations (e.g. dynamical models, optimality models, topological models, etc.). Explanatory monists argue that one goal will be explanatory in all contexts, while explanatory pluralists argue that the goal will vary based on pragmatic considerations. In this paper, I argue that such debates are misguided, and that both monists and pluralists are incorrect. Instead of any goal being given explanatory priority over others in a given context, the different goals are all deeply dependent on one another for their explanatory power. Any model that sacrifices some explanatory goals to attain others will always necessarily undermine its own explanatory power in the process. And so when forced to choose between individual scientific models, there can be no explanatory victors. Given that no model can satisfy all the goals typically associated with explanation, no one model in isolation can provide a good scientific explanation. Instead we must appeal to collections of models. Collections of models provide an explanation when they satisfy the web of interconnected goals that justify the explanatory power of one another.     

Predicting Attitudes toward Press- and Speech Freedom across the U.S.A.: A Test of Climato-Economic,Parasite Stress,and Life History Theories

National surveys reveal notable individual differences in U.S. citizens’ attitudes toward freedom of expression, including freedom of the press and speech. Recent theoretical developments and empirical findings suggest that ecological factors impact censorship attitudes in addition to individual difference variables (e.g., education, conservatism), but no research has compared the explanatory power of prominent ecological theories. This study tested climato-economic, parasite stress, and life history theories using four measures of attitudes toward censoring the press and offensive speech obtained from two national surveys in the U.S.A. Neither climate demands nor its interaction with state wealth—two key variables for climato-economic theory—predicted any of the four outcome measures. Interstate parasite stress significantly predicted two, with a marginally significant effect on the third, but the effects became non-significant when the analyses were stratified for race (as a control for extrinsic risks). Teenage birth rates (a proxy of human life history) significantly predicted attitudes toward press freedom during wartime, but the effect was the opposite of what life history theory predicted. While none of the three theories provided a fully successful explanation of individual differences in attitudes toward freedom of expression, parasite stress and life history theories do show potentials. Future research should continue examining the impact of these ecological factors on human psychology by further specifying the mechanisms and developing better measures for those theories.     

Fetal testosterone and empathy

BACKGROUND: In animals, fetal testosterone (fT) plays a central role in organizing the brain and in later social behavior. In humans, exposure to atypical levels of prenatal androgens may result in masculine behavior and ability patterns. Normal inter-individual variation in fT levels has also been correlated with later sex-typed behavior. METHODS: In the current study, 38 children (24 male, 14 female), whose fT was analyzed in amniotic fluid, were followed up at age 4. They were asked to describe cartoons with 2 moving triangles whose interactions with each other suggested social relationships and psychological motivations. RESULTS: Females used more mental and affective state terms to describe the cartoons than males. fT was not associated with the frequency of mental or affective state terms. Females also used more intentional propositions than males. fT was negatively correlated with the frequency of intentional propositions, taking sex differences into account. fT was also negatively correlated with the frequency of intentional propositions when males were examined separately. Males used more neutral propositions than females. fT was directly correlated with the frequency of neutral propositions, taking sex differences into account. This relationship was not seen when males and females were examined separately. CONCLUSIONS: These findings implicate fT in human social development. The relevance of our findings to the 'extreme male brain' theory of autism is also discussed.