Neven Sesardic

Confusions about race : a new installment

In his criticism of my paper on the concept of race (Sesardic, 2010), Adam Hochman raises many issues that deserve further clarification. First, I will comment on Hochman’s claim that I attack a straw man version of racial constructionism. Second, I will try to correct what I see as a distorted historical picture of the debate between racial naturalists and racial constructionist s. Third, I will point out the main weaknesses in Hochman’s own defense of constructioni sm about race. And fourth, I will briefly comment on why I think that Hochman unjustifiably dismisses one of the potential sources of racial differentiation that were suggested in my paper. Before I start, though, a preliminary clarification is in order. Hochman kindly calls my article ‘‘one of the strongest defenses of racial naturalism in recent times’’, which might suggest to the reader that my goal was to offer a full-fledged biologica l explication of the concept of race. But in fact my ambition was more limited. As I explained:

Heritability and Indirect Causation

Genetic differences can lead to phenotypic differences either directly or indirectly (via causing differences in external environments, which then affect phenotype). This possibility of genetic effects being mediated by environmental influences is often used by scientists and philosophers to argue that heritability is not a very helpful causal or explanatory notion. In this paper it is shown that these criticisms are based on serious misconceptions about methods of behavior genetics.

Evolution of human jealousy : a just-so story or a just-so criticism?

To operationalize the methodological assessment of evolutionary psychology, three requirements are proposed that, if satisfied, would show that a hypothesis is not a just-so story: (1) theoretical entrenchment (i.e., that the hypothesis under consideration is a consequence of a more fundamental theory that is empirically well-confirmed across a very wide range of phenomena), (2) predictive success (i.e., that the hypothesis generates concrete predictions that make it testable and eventually to a certain extent corroborated), and (3) failure of rival explanations (i.e., that crucial and successful predictions attributed to the hypothesis in question cannot be derived from alternative hypotheses). The author argues that the hypothesis about evolutionary sex differences in human jealousy satisfies all three requirements.

Commentary: An explosion without a bang

Consider a conflict between the following two accounts of the Kennedy assassination: (i) the Oswald theory (that John F. Kennedy was killed by a man named Oswald, who was born in New Orleans to those particular parents), and (ii) the conspiracy theory (that the whole thing was planned and carried out by the CIA and other government agencies). Now imagine counterfactually that, despite all the plausible evidence accumulated over the years and pointing to Lee Harvey Oswald as the culprit, it is eventually proved that he was not in Dallas at all on that fateful day and that the assassin was in fact his elder brother, Robert Oswald, Jr. Notice that the Oswald theory, the way it was described above, would strictly speaking still be true even under the new circumstances (because it only claimed that ‘Kennedy was killed by a man named Oswald, who was born in New Orleans to those particular parents’). Nevertheless, is it not quite clear that we would all think that those who had defended the Oswald theory in the past were badly off the mark and that they surely have some serious re-examining to do? Something similar has actually happened in the nature–nurture controversy and yet, somewhat surprisingly, not much re-examining has been done. Language: en

Sudden Infant Death or Murder? A Royal Confusion About Probabilities

In this article I criticize the recommendations of some prominent statisticians about how to estimate and compare probabilities of the repeated sudden infant death and repeated murder. The issue has drawn considerable public attention in connection with several recent court cases in the UK. I try to show that when the three components of the Bayesian inference are carefully analyzed in this context, the advice of the statisticians turns out to be problematic in each of the steps. 1. Introduction2. Setting the Stage: Bayess Theorem3. Prior Probabilities of Single SIDS and Single Homicide4. Prior Probabilities of the Recurrence of SIDS and Homicide5. Likelihoods of Double SIDS and Double Homicide6. Posterior Probabilities of Double SIDS and Double Homicide7. Conclusion Introduction Setting the Stage: Bayess Theorem Prior Probabilities of Single SIDS and Single Homicide Prior Probabilities of the Recurrence of SIDS and Homicide Likelihoods of Double SIDS and Double Homicide Posterior Probabilities of Double SIDS and Double Homicide Conclusion

Crossing the ‘explanatory divide’: a bridge to nowhere?

We have moved beyond versus. Whether it is medical traits like clinical depression, behavioral traits like criminality, or cognitive traits like intelligence, it is now widely recognized that ‘nature versus nurture’ does not apply. There are no genes for depression such that having the gene ensures the development of depression and lacking the gene ensures resilience to depression. Likewise, there are no environments for depression such that all differences in depression can be explained by pointing to those differences in environment.

The Mirage of a Space between Nature and Nurture

take them to be literally true, so our approach can be depicted as being fictionalist. But with e.g. natural numbers used in those theories the situation does not seem to be analogous, for there is no clear general answer to the question: what are the natural numbers an approximation of in the empirical world? At this point someone might object that even if we accepted Leng’s fictionalism and the battle for the indispensability argument were lost, there would still be no conclusive argument that there are no mathematical objects. Leng’s response is along the lines of Field’s: the indispensability argument is the best one available so we are right in being persuaded that mathematical objects do not exist once this argument of Quine and Putnam has been successfully rejected: ‘If we account for our successful scientific practices without assuming that our mathematically stated empirical theories assert truths about mathematical objects, then this provides us with a positive reason to reject the claim that there are any mathematical objects’ (259). Let me leave the discussion of this provocative issue at that, for lack of space. In conclusion, I would recommend Leng’s Mathematics and Reality as philosophically inspiring, while at the same time quite enjoyable-to-read, book for everyone interested in the philosophy of mathematics—as well as a useful and nice reference book to be used in courses in philosophy of mathematics.

Book ReviewsPeter Danielson, , ed.Modeling Rationality, Morality and Evolution.New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. 463.

This book is the seventh volume of the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science. Its core consists of papers delivered at the conference “Modeling Rational and Moral Agents” at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver in February 1994, although some of the articles included in the book are not related to that event. Several contributions of philosophers (Skyrms, Churchland, Schmidtz, Irvine) will be well known to many a reader since they appeared in print in a similar form before the publication of this book. The papers are divided into four main sections: “Rationality,” “Modeling Social Interaction,” “Morality,” and “Evolution.” With the exception of the second part (“Modeling Social Interaction”), which is narrowly focused, other papers cover a very broad range of issues, and as a result even texts within one section are occasionally only loosely connected. A longer introduction would have been helpful to emphasize more strongly the existing common threads of argument, points of contact, and divergences of opinions. There is not enough space here to say something, however briefly, about each particular essay. The selection was necessary, and inevitably it was at least in part determined by idiosyncrasies of my interests. The first section on “Rationality” revolves around the question of rationality of cooperative strategies in the “prisoner’s dilemma”–type situations. More specifically, the main issue is commitment to plans, and how (if at all) planning can overcome suboptimal outcomes of the choices that are dictated by the standard decision theory. In the paper “Rationality and Rules,” Edward McClennen points to interesting structural similarities between intrapersonal and interpersonal choice. His idea is that, by using the analogy between these two different decision contexts, he can show that solving a more tractable problem of coordinating actions of the same person could help us demonstrate the rationality of cooperation between different persons as well. McClennen thinks that the conclusion reached about the former situation “carries over” to the latter one, but surely there still remains a lot of space for discussion here. The basic difficulties with McClennen’s defense of “resolute” choice (commitment to long-term plans) are addressed again, albeit in different terms, in an interesting exchange between David Gauthier and Michael Bratman on whether selfish rational agents can actually resort to the strategy of conditional cooperation. Although their views on the matter are well known, the particular debate in these pages, focused largely on Kavka’s “toxin puzzle,” helps a lot to clarify the reasons for their opposed standpoints. Bratman makes a strong point by arguing that Gauthier’s current position is “unstable” and inadequately motivated. Namely, Gauthier was notoriously forced to modify his original theory because of its counterintuitive consequences for the situations of failed threats.