re: #678 Cato

re: #677 Hhar

One point about evolution that Stove makes is that in Darwin’s formulation is explicitly based on the Malthusean argument. Populations increase up to their food supply. It is one of the few scientific theories that looks to a political economic theory.

Well, it would be more appropriate to say that in its genesis, and for many years thereafter, Darwinian biology cited Malthus heavily. It doesn’t really any more except as a teaching tool: ecology and population biology explicitly recognise the complexities of population control, and the widespread (and by now very old) heuristic of r and K selected organisms demonstrates that Darwinian biologists understand full well that Malthus’ ideas are not so generally applicable. The current emphases on (for instance) parasitism, symbiosis, co-evolution and ecological networks is a far cry from Malthus’ rather primitive ideas.

But I agree that politco-economic theory has affected Darwinian biology. Game theory, optimality theory, economic analyses: all of these started life in the politocal/economic sphere, and all of these were applied secondarily to evolution. There is nothing I see wrong with this; both economic and biological systems have important and explicitly historical, contingent and frequency dependant aspects to them, so a tool that has analytic power in one area can be expected to have some analytic power in another. However, the interesting Joan Roughgarden has critiqued analyses of reproduction as being biased by social structures. More to the point on this blog, I have spoken to ecologists from the Mideast, who lament the poor quality of ecological studies in the area, and note that (for obvious reasons) most of the ornithology and mammology focuses on organisms mentioned in the Koran. The list goes on.

Anticreationism can quickly degenerate into narrow secularist cheerleading and atheist triumphalism, both of which I personally detest. If “scientific creationism” were not such a travesty, and its propagators not so deeply mendacious and so invidious to secular pluralism, I would be far less tolerant of many of its critics.

PS: Ultrasonography is non-nvasive, while amniocentesis has a low, but non-trivial complication rate which often involves loss of the pregnancy (ie poking a needle into the uterus can precipitate labour). If amniocentesis is not indicated for medical reasons (e.g. family history, advanced maternal age, fetal anomalies demonstrated on sonography etc), gender determination is generally and reliably done by ultrasonography. Amniocentesis and ultrasonography are complimentary diagnostic tools, and don’t replace each other. (I’m an MD.)