Animals, Political Liberalism and Public Reason by Federico Zuolo
Author:Federico Zuolo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030495091
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
(ii)In general, science should not be spelled with a capital letter. Not only are there diverse sciences and disciplines, but there are also diverse and legitimate interpretations of the same findings and principles. As is known, science makes progress and paradigms change the scientifically correct picture of reality. But this does not necessarily mean that really anything goes. Practices of epistemological correctness have some invariance and at least define a range of admissible answers. Consider for instance contemporary evolutionist theory. The Modern Synthesis has been the standard formulation of the Darwinian legacy as applied to the study of populations and the laws of genetic inheritance. Its fundamental tenets (random genetic variation, gradualism, focus on genes, natural selection as the most important factors) have been variously discussed.
These epistemological debates gave rise to uncertainty regarding, for instance, the attribution of a class of beings to a certain species, the definition of a species itself (whether it is a class of individuals or a collective individual itself), the pace of evolution (whether it is gradual or has some accelerations), the subject of selection (whether it concerns genes, traits or individual organisms), the causal chain (whether there is a genetic determinism) and numerous other issues.
Among many other disputes, let us take the most recent attempt at reformulating some basic tenets of evolutionism (namely, the so-called Modern Synthesis). A strand of researchers has proposed a new approach called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Without putting in question the basic validity of evolutionism, this view challenges some of its fundamental features: it claims that there is no unidirectional causation from genes to traits in the first place, next to individuals and to populations, but there are also developmental features, niches and acquired traits that influence the determination of genes; evolutionary change happens in variable rates (for instance, with thresholds); the environmental niche should not be seen only as a pre-established constraint putting selective pressure because there is a co-evolution of environmental niches and the organisms populating them (Laland et al. 2015). Although this approach presents itself not as a new revolutionary paradigm, but rather as a reformulation and advancement of some classical evolutionary tenets, it is obviously partly controversial in challenging some tenets of evolutionism. What does this challenge and other controversies mean for our discourse on science? I do not wish to assess the scientific plausibility of these proposals. My point, here, is simply that of noting that scientifically valid theories may clash. The coarse-grained level of our analysis should help us to avoid stumbling upon such controversies. Indeed, when appealing to “the findings of science” I will refer to what is uncontroversially accepted, notwithstanding the diverse interpretations and possible doctrinal variability.
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