Evolutionary Epistemology Research Paper

1. Gene-Based Evolutionary Theory

In order to understand evolutionary epistemology, one must understand evolution, in particular the distinction between genotypes and phenotypes. The genotype of an organism consists in the sequence of bases in its DNA, or rarely, in its RNA. Everything else is part of its phenotype, from its blood type to its behavior. Variations in the genotype of an organism lead, through embryological development, to different phenotypic traits. These genetic variations are caused, totally caused. Among these causes are unequal crossover, increased temperature, and the presence of numerous mutagens. However, to count as Darwinian evolution, no correlation must exist between the variations an organism might need and those it might get; for example, it cannot be ‘Lamarckian.’ For Lamarckian evolution to occur, some feature of an organism’s environment must change the phenotype of that organism in such a way that it is better adapted to the environmental feature that produced this change in the first place. This phenotypic change must then somehow be transmitted to the organism’s genes to be passed on to subsequent generations via the genetic material. A mother dog giving fleas to her puppies does not count as Lamarckian inheritance.

Some of the traits exhibited by an organism make it better able to survive and reproduce. As a result, the genes that code for these traits are passed on differentially from generation to generation. However, as organisms become better-adapted to their environments, their environments frequently move out from under them. A few species succeed in surviving through the millennia largely unchanged, but most survive only by evolving. One feature of gene-based selection in biological evolution is that it can occur quite rapidly, as in viruses and bacteria, or quite slowly, as in most larger animals. However, in every case of Darwinian evolution, the relevant traits are inherited literally via the genetic material. Initially, the ‘units’ used in evolutionary biology were traits because evolutionary biologists had no access to the genetic material. As this access has increased, traits have been replaced by genes as units of inheritance. Unfortunately, the genetic material can be divided up in numerous ways. As a result, biologists concentrate on the ‘information’ contained in the genetic material.

Advocates of evolutionary epistemology in its most literal sense argue that the preceding story equally applies to some behavioral traits and predispositions. These traits and dispositions are as much phenotypic traits as are hair texture and skin color. Knowledge of the world in which organisms live gets programmed into an organism’s genes. For example, fear of heights and the sucking reflex are in some sense programmed into the genes of human beings. The evolution of behaviors and behavioral predispositions has all the usual characteristics of gene-based biological evolution. As traits, behaviors can be adaptive. The inheritance involved is genetic, strictly Darwinian, not Lamarckian, and it can occur at a variety of rates from very slow to very fast.

The majority of epistemologists are not very impressed with evolutionary epistemology, in part because it is naturalistic, and only normative epistemologies are worth the title of epistemology. But a second weakness is that the only beliefs that evolutionary epistemology in this strict sense can even purport to justify are beliefs about entities and processes that the organism can perceive. Evolutionary epistemology might lend some justification for how human beings distinguish species of large organisms, but it cannot justify any beliefs that we have about the millions of tiny microorganisms that fill every nook and cranny of the world, let alone quantum indeterminacy.

2. Individual Learning

In ‘eusocial organisms,’ such as bees and termites, nearly all of the behaviors exhibited by these creatures evolved in a strictly Darwinian fashion. Relatively little learning takes place in the span of a single generation. But many organisms can learn from interacting with their environments. In a second form of evolutionary epistemology, knowledge does not get programmed into our ‘genes,’ but into our ‘brains.’ Gene-based selection in biological evolution can handle features of the environment that change relatively slowly, e.g., changes in temperature resulting from continental drift, but some changes are so rapid that organisms with longer generation times cannot adapt to them. One solution to this problem is the evolution of the ‘central nervous system.’ Organisms with highly developed central nervous systems can learn about their environments and react to changes in them with greater speed. This information does not get programmed into an organism’s genes but into its brain. ‘Operant learning’ is the simplest form of individual learning. Each kind of organism has a range of behaviors that it tends to emit spontaneously. Feedback from its environment increases or decreases the frequency of these behaviors. Sequential environmental responses shape the behavioral repertoires of these organisms.

The preconditions for operant learning are certainly programmed into the genes of those organisms that are capable of individual learning, and arose through gene-based natural selection. However, the specific learned repertoires cannot be passed on to successive generations. Each organism must learn anew. For better or for worse, calculus is not programmed into the genes of any human being. Each generation must learn it from scratch. If over many generations the same learning regimen is repeated and produces some evolutionary advantage, what was once a learned behavior can to some extent become programmed into the genes. Within a single life-history of an organism, the mechanisms that produce increased knowledge can be viewed as a ‘selection process.’ However, in this selection process, ‘brain states’ take the place of genes. Behavioral units can vary from something as brief and discrete as pressing a lever to something as complex and protracted as mowing a lawn. We have yet to discover the size and shape of the brain states that are responsible for the retention of information.

A second solution to the problem posed by differences in reaction times is the ‘immune system.’ In order to keep up with the rapid rate of reproduction of such antigens as viruses, immune systems evolved in many larger organisms. Within the life of a single organism, selection in the immune system occurs at the cellular level. Antibodies are produced in huge numbers, each with its own reaction site. If any of these antibodies happens upon an antigen that contains a protein that matches its reaction site, this antibody proliferates and, in most cases, eliminates the antigen. Once again, the ‘information’ garnered through successive invasions by antigens cannot be passed on to later generations. After each invasion, a few memory cells lie in wait for any subsequent invasions. That is all. Although some workers in the early years of modern immunology thought that the process might contain some elements of Lamarckian inheritance, it does not.

3. Social Learning

Classic epistemology dealt with individual, isolated cognizers. How much can we learn about our environments in total isolation from all other people? How certain could Robinson Crusoe be, once marooned on his island, of any new knowledge that he obtained? After all, he had no one with whom to check his discoveries. But even the Robinson Crusoe example is not pure enough, because Crusoe brought with him language and a fund of socially acquired knowledge. What about someone who began life totally isolated from all other human beings? In the first place, such an isolated baby would rapidly die, but how about the science fiction case? How about a baby adopted by wolves or some other unlikely creature? How much could it know? How justified would its knowledge be? The answer to both questions is very little. Social organisms can learn more than solitary organisms and be more secure in this knowledge because of culture.

Most discussions of evolutionary epistemology do not deal with strict gene-based biological evolution or individual learning such as operant behavior, but ‘social’ learning. In social learning, knowledge acquired by one organism in its lifetime can be passed on to other organisms. This knowledge is transmitted from organism to organism, not through genes, not through the passing on of any brain tissue, but through ‘imitation’ and ‘communication’. As a result, social learning need not proceed vertically, as defined by the direction that genes take in passing from parent to offspring, but horizontally (see Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981). Education in the human species is an example of social learning. Through repeated efforts, teachers succeed in getting at least some of their pupils to be able to solve problems in calculus. Although the ability to learn in this way surely has a genetic component, social learning does not involve transmitting information genetically. As a result, it cannot count literally as Darwinian or Lamarckian. Of course, nothing keeps genes and culture from coevolving. In fact ‘gene-culture coevolution’ is likely to be of primary importance in human evolution (see Durham 1991, for additional reading, see Boyd and Richerson 1985, Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981, Eldredge and Grene 1992, and Lumsden and Wilson 1981).

4. Memetics

At this stage, advocates of evolutionary epistemology as social learning make a significant move. They cease treating bits of knowledge, behavior, and the like as analogous to ‘characters’ but as analogous to ‘genes.’ Just as genes get passed on differentially in gene-based biological evolution, ‘memes’ get transmitted differentially in ‘memetic’ evolution (Blackmore 1999, Dawkins 1976, and Plotkin 1994). Just replacing genes with memes may not sound like a very profound change, but the implications are significant. Once again, memetic evolution is not in the least Lamarckian. Literally, memetic evolution is not Lamarckian because nothing is being passed on ‘genetically.’ Metaphorically, it is not Lamarckian because what is being transmitted is not analogous to ‘characters’ but to ‘genes.’ It is the inheritance of acquired memes, not genes or even characters. The reason for emphasizing that memetic evolution is in no cogent sense Lamarckian, is that critics of memetic evolution think that they can dismiss this perspective simply by terming it ‘Lamarckian.’

Critics of memetics provide a long list of objections to the memetic form of evolutionary epistemology. First, supposedly memetic evolution occurs so much more quickly than does gene-based biological evolution. But the same variations in speed of transmission can be found in both. Certainly viruses can spread as quickly as any meme. Second, critics complain that the analogy between genes and memes is imperfect. Genes are supposedly absolutely distinct, all of the same size and kind, and do not interact with each other. Supposedly memes exhibit none of these characteristics. Hence, the meme–gene analogy breaks down. But one need not know very much about genetics to know that genes possess none of the characteristics attributed to them by critics of memetics. Some genes are reasonably discrete; many are not, and much of the genetic material cannot be subdivided meaningfully into discrete genes. Genes vary tremendously in size, and numerous different sorts of genes exist (e.g., regulator genes). Also genes interact with each other in extremely complex ways in development. In addition, many elements of knowledge communication possess all of the preceding characteristics reasonably well developed; for example, e-mail addresses.

The chief problem with treating conceptual entities as memes is the difficulty of distinguishing phenotypic characteristics in this metaphorical usage. Behaviors count as characteristics in literal evolutionary epistemology. They are analogous to ‘genes’ in the metaphorical usage. Then what counts as phenotypic characters in the metaphorical usage? Memes get transferred from brains to air waves, to computer chips, to computer screens, to brains, etc. All of this counts as replication because information is being transmitted with relatively little loss. However, every once in a while, ‘replication’ is interrupted by ‘translation.’ Knowledge is connected causally to what it is knowledge of: you believe, for example, that barking dogs do not bite, so as you approach a barking dog, you put this belief to the test. The result will modify your belief system. The dog itself is not a meme.

As in other cases of selection, the notion of information plays a central role. One important feature of memetic replication is transmission with relatively little loss of information. One important feature of translation into the phenotype is significant loss of information. Instructions on how to make a Stradivarius violin can be transmitted from agent to agent. Antonio Stradivari might have written down these instructions, and even allowed an apprentice to watch him make a violin. If he had, this apprentice might have been able to make violins of the same caliber as did his master. He might have passed down this combination of knowledge and skill to the present. However, that is not what happened. All we have are Stradivari’s violins. As repeated failures have shown, making violins based just on what we can learn from the finished product (reverse engineering) is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Future work in memetics is needed to present adequate analyses of ‘information’ and the ‘genotype-phenotype’ distinction.

5. A General Analysis Of Selection

Early versions of evolutionary epistemology involved reasoning analogously from gene-based selection in biological evolution to knowledge acquisition. The analogical character of this activity has been the source of endless criticism. Evolutionary epistemology is ‘merely’ an analogy. In these arguments, the peculiarities of gene-based selection have played an inordinately important role in biological evolution. Any departure from gene-based selection in biological evolution, no matter how trivial, is viewed as a lethal disanalogy. However, an alternative view has been suggested periodically. Instead of reasoning analogously from one sort of selection process to another, present a ‘general analysis of selection’ that is equally applicable to all sorts of selection processes, whether gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, individual learning, social learning, memetics, etc. (Toulmin 1972). Although the father of evolutionary epistemology, Donald Campbell (1974) was one of the strongest proponents of justifying knowledge by reference to gene-based selection in biological evolution. In his later writings he adopted this second program. Evolutionary epistemology is no longer an analogy, but it is a special case of selection. Just as the processes that result in functional organization have been isolated and analyzed as a special sort of process, selection processes warrant an equally careful treatment.

Starting with Lewontin’s (1970) classic statement, successive attempts have been made to specify the essence of selection processes. According to Lewontin, the three necessary elements for selection to occur are phenotypic variation (different individuals in a population have different morphologies, physiologies, and behaviors), differential fitness (different phenotypes have different rates of survival and reproduction in different environments), and heritable fitness (there is a correlation between parents and offspring in the contributions of each to future generations). According to Hull’s (1980) more general characterization, the selection process is made up of three subprocesses related in very specific ways: (a) replication of information in successive generations with only minimal modification, (b) environmental interaction that causes the preceding replication to be differential, and (c) some source of variation. The goal is to show that gene-based selection in biological evolution, the reaction of the immune system to antigens, individual learning, social learning, and other processes as well, all exhibit the basic structure of selection processes. However, such general analyses of selection do not provide any epistemological warrant. If evolutionary epistemology is to remain ‘epistemology,’ then some other source of epistemological warrant must be provided (Hull 2001).

6. Conclusion

Evolutionary epistemology has changed significantly from its slim beginnings. Initially, it dealt only with knowledge that is literally gene-based, e.g., a tendency to group organisms into discrete species. Evolutionary epistemology in this strict sense justified certain beliefs. However, this warrant was neither very strong nor very extensive. Evolutionary epistemology in this sense is limited only to those environmental interactions that are in the range of an organism’s sense organs and that matter with respect to an organism’s survival and reproduction. Evolutionary epistemology in this strict sense can provide no justification whatsoever for a belief in quantum indeterminacy.

However, the sort of evolutionary epistemology that has received the greatest attention is metaphorical in character. Knowledge is in no sense programmed into the genes to be transmitted to future generations. Instead the transmission is social. The entities being transmitted are in a broad sense memes. Numerous objections have been raised to this metaphorical evolutionary epistemology. First, so it is alleged, memes are not all that similar to genes. However, these objections stem from an unreal view of both genes and memes. The real problem is identifying something that can count as the phenotype in memetic evolution. In the absence of such a distinction, memetic evolution cannot be characterized as either Darwinian or Lamarckian. Once again, a mother dog giving her puppies fleas is not Lamarckian inheritance in either a literal or a metaphorical sense.

Whatever warrant metaphorical evolutionary epistemology provides arises from its analogical connections to literal evolutionary epistemology. Because many species of organism must be able to distinguish members of their own species to reproduce and survive, other beliefs more distantly related to reproduction and survival gain some analogical warrant. One problem with both sorts of evolutionary epistemology is that they do not distinguish between ‘success’ and ‘truth.’ Many false beliefs have been proven to be very successful with respect to survival and reproduction, e.g., the belief that God is on the side of one’s own group in times of war. For this and many other reasons, a majority of professional epistemologists reject evolutionary epistemology as not being nearly good enough. Of course, professional epistemologists reach the same conclusion with respect to all other epistemological justifications as well, save their own.

A third sort of evolutionary epistemology has gained increased popularity through the years. Instead of reasoning analogically from gene-based to memebased evolution, a general analysis of selection is produced that equally applies to all sorts of selection processes from the reaction of the immune system to antigens to social learning. As promising as this research program might well be, it has one serious drawback. It supplies no epistemological warrant, at least not in any of the traditional senses. Just because a belief arose through a selection process, it does not follow that this belief is true. It all depends on the character of the selection process. For example, a belief that survives the sort of serious testing that goes on in science is likely to be true, while biblical exegesis is not likely to increase its warrant.

However, during this same period, what counts as ‘epistemology’ has expanded greatly. Epistemologists are no longer limited just to justifying knowledge. They are engaged in all sorts of other activities as well. For our purposes, the issue is whether or not providing a general analysis of selection can justify certain sorts of knowledge and, if not, whether it counts as ‘epistemology’ in any of its more recent senses.

Bibliography:

1. Blackmore S 1999 The Meme Machine. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
2. Boyd R, Richerson P J 1985 Culture and the Evolutionary Process. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
3. Campbell D 1974 Evolutionary epistemology. In: Schilpp P A (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl R. Popper. Open Court Publishers, La Salle, IL
4. Cavalli-Sforza L L, Feldman M W 1981 Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
5. Dawkins R 1976 The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
6. Durham W H 1991 Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA
7. Eldredge N, Grene M 1992 Interactions: The Biological Context of Social Systems. Columbia University Press, New York, NY
8. Hull D L 1980 Individuality and selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 11: 311–32
9. Hull D L 2001 In search of epistemological warrant. In: Campbell D T (ed.) Selection Theory and Social Construction. State University of New York Press, Stony Brook, NY
10. Lewontin R C 1970 The units of selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 1: 1–18
11. Lumsden C J, Wilson E O 1981 Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
12. Plotkin H 1994 Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
13. Toulmin S 1972 Human Understanding. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ