------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (June 2005)
Graeme Donald Snooks, _The Collapse of Darwinism, or The Rise of a
Realist Theory of Life_. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003. xv
+ 341 pp. $80 (hardcover), ISBN: 0-7391-0613-9.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Business Studies,
University of Hertfordshire.
Graeme Donald Snooks -- an economist by training now at the Institute
of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University --
proclaims that Darwinism has failed in explaining both biological
speciation and the development of human society. Alongside this
apparently devastating critical blow against much of modern science,
he also expounds his own 'theory of life.' This he claims can
'completely ... as possible' explain developments and events such as
speciation, the end of the dinosaurs, 'the dynamics of human
civilization as well as the dynamics of nature,' 'why we are not
smarter than we are,' and 'the future of life as well as its past'
(p. 197).
The book divides into three parts. The first two parts discuss
Darwinism and its alleged collapse. The third part proposes his
'dynamic-strategy view of life.' Snooks claims a scientific
'breakthrough' establishing 'general laws that can explain the
origins and dynamics of the real world' (p. 279). Scientific modesty
does not seem to be his strongest suit.
Much of Snooks' positive attempt to discover an alternative universal
explanation of long-term dynamic change has been developed before, in
no less than eight books published since 1993, in which he has
previously discussed 'the forces of historical change,' 'longrun
dynamics,' 'the sources of global change,' 'the laws of history,' 'a
general economic and political theory,' and 'a general theory of
economic development,' to cite phrases from their titles and
subtitles.
By elaborating his own view of appropriate scientific procedure,
Snooks attempts both to undermine Darwinism and to develop guidelines
to erect his own theory. His course of action is to present the
wave-like patterns of development over millions of years as data, and
then somehow to derive the 'laws' that explain these patterns.
Given that Snooks bases both his negative critique of Darwinism and
his positive attempt to build an alternative theory on his views
concerning the correct scientific method, his views on the philosophy
and methodology of science are discussed here. I shall then move on
to discuss his critique of Darwinism and his alternative 'realist
theory of life.'
Snooks on Scientific Method
Snooks is eager to find philosophical flaw in 'Darwin's method of
theory building' (p. 33) and to proclaim that his own alternative
theory is more scientific and realistic. He advocates 'realism' and
the 'inductive, or historical, method' (p. 41).
Snooks brushes aside the famous 'problem of induction,' which is seen
as 'the absence of mechanical rules for generalizing from empirical
data.' For Snooks, this problem is 'not as debilitating' as the
problems with deductivism. But this is only part of the problem. Ever
since David Hume, the problem of induction has not merely been
recognized as the absence of rules for generalization, but the
_impossibility_ of generalization through induction from any
realizable number of observations. Ten million observations might
confirm that 'all living grass is green,' but we can never be sure
that somewhere there exists a blade of grass of a different color.
Snooks ignores another problem with inductivism, widely elaborated in
philosophy. This is that any empirical enquiry requires conceptual
and theoretical preconceptions. In particular, imputations of cause
and effect cannot be built on evidence alone. Consequently, some
theory must precede empirical enquiry, and all factual investigation
is theory-laden. Snooks seems unaware of all this.
Instead he adopts a crude form of empiricism where 'science' must rid
itself of all 'metaphysics' (pp. 27, 178, 220). Snooks writes:
'Science is not a matter of "word games" but of experiment and
empirical verification/falsification' (p. 91). He is evidently
unaware that one of the major turns in the philosophy of science,
associated partly with Karl Popper and Willard van Orman Quine and
leading to the decline of logical positivism, was the reestablishment
of the proposition that all science relies on ontological or
metaphysical presuppositions.
From his vaguely defined methodological stance, Snooks criticizes
Darwin's use of analogy. Snooks focuses on Darwin's account of how
the breeder of domestic animal employs methods of deliberate
selection to improve the stock. Darwin used this appeal to the
analogy of 'artificial selection' to make his broader theory of
'natural selection' understandable. Snooks seizes on this as 'the
farmyard analogy' and repeats his description of Darwinism as 'the
farmyard theory' ad nauseum.
Snooks rightly observes that nature is not a farmyard, and thereby
concludes that the 'farmyard analogy' is bound to be unrealistic.
Given this general lack of realism with analogies, reasoning by
analogy is generally suspect according to Snooks, and instead the
scientist must appeal to the facts, using the 'inductive, or
historical, method.' By assembling the facts and making appropriate
generalizations, 'there is an endogenous regularity and
predictability than can be persuasively modeled. But only if we
abandon Darwinism in all its forms' (p. 196).
Again this shows little awareness of the philosophy of science.
Modern philosophers have established that metaphor and analogy are
indispensable to scientific enquiry. When Snooks makes frequent
appeals to 'realism' he shows no appreciation that realist
philosophers of science that have been in the forefront in promoting
this argument. But, for all its talk of 'realism,' Snooks makes no
explicit use of modern realist philosophy.
The Critique of Darwinism
Mounting a critique of Darwinism is difficult because of the huge
amount of material on the topic and because to some degree Darwinism
itself has evolved as a doctrine. Faced with these problems, the
critic would best proceed by addressing modern accounts that claim to
identify the essence of Darwinism. Apart from the populist works of
Richard Dawkins, which promote a particular and controversial version
of Darwinism, where would we find such accounts of the meaning of
Darwinism? By far the most important contributions to our
understanding of the essence of Darwinism have come from
philosophically inclined writers such as Daniel Dennett, David Hull,
Ernst Mayr and Elliott Sober. But Snooks makes no use whatsoever of
this relevant material.
Instead, he assembles a picture of 'Darwinism' through a collage of
selected quotations and personal presumptions. According to Snooks,
the central propositions of 'Darwinism' include an idea of natural
selection 'built on the totally untenable assumption that all
organisms at all times and in all places attempt to maximize the
number of their offspring' (p. 11). In addition: 'Every organism in
the plant and animal kingdoms is somehow programmed to produce as
many offspring as possible in all places and time. The resulting
struggle for existence over scarce resources is always extremely
severe' (p. 22). Furthermore, Darwin made an 'unrealistic' prediction
of slow, continuous and gradual change (pp. 12, 251).
Note the critical strategy here. When presenting what he regards as
key Darwinian propositions, Snooks generally formulates them in an
extreme form. He thus sees natural selection as based on the idea
that organisms _always and everywhere maximize_ their offspring.
However, modern formulations of the principle of selection, as in the
works of Elliott Sober and George Price, make no use whatsoever of
such an idea. Neither Darwin nor any other serious biologist ever
entertained such a notion. Indeed, there is a large literature in
modern (Darwinian) theoretical and empirical biology (by Timothy
Clutton-Brock and others) that considers the trade-off between
fecundity and survival. The resolution of this trade-off depends on
the characteristics of the species concerned. Where parental care is
less necessary or costly, species tend to produce large numbers of
offspring. In other cases they devote resources to the care and
survival of fewer progeny, rather than maximizing their number. In
describing the maximization of offspring as the central Darwinian
imperative, Snooks is plain wrong.
Snooks dismisses the role of scarcity in Darwinian theory, with
assertions such as: 'In reality genetic change associated with
speciation ... only occurs when ... competition is minimal and
natural resources are abundant' (p. 12). A problem here is that the
concept of scarcity is often unrefined and we need to think more
carefully what scarcity means. There is a big difference between
global or absolute scarcity and scarcity in a local and immediate
sense. A period of relatively abundant resources does not necessarily
mean that they are immediately available to all individuals. Even
with abundance, organisms must struggle to obtain and process
resources. It is in this sense that the Darwinian notions of scarcity
and struggle are relevant and general, and survive Snooks' rebuttal.
Turning to the notion that Darwinian evolution is necessarily
gradual, as Darwin himself emphasized, Snooks ignores recent
discussions of the apparent dilemma between punctuated equilibria and
(Darwinian) gradualism, by Dawkins and others. The dilemma turns out
to be apparent rather than real, first because in accounts of
punctuated change, even the more rapid spurts of evolutionary change
take place over hundred of thousands of years, and second, because
there is nothing in Darwinian theory that upholds that evolution
always has to occur at constant speed. Contrary to Snooks, long
periods where natural selection operates with little net effect on
the characteristics of a species are entirely compatible with
Darwinian theory. Obversely, Darwinism can readily accommodate period
of more rapid evolutionary change, whether caused by exogenous
environmental shocks or endogenous processes of positive feedback.
Addressing later versions of Darwinism, Snooks deploys the catch-all
description of 'neo-Darwinism' but concentrates almost entirely on
the gene-centered and sociobiological versions, with their concepts
of the 'selfish gene' and the 'genetic leash.' Snooks thus writes of
'neo-Darwinism's exclusive concern with genetics' (p. 11). We are
presented with generalized caricatures such as: 'According to
Darwinism, individuals in nature and, by implication, in human
society are merely mindless robots when it comes to procreation' (p.
25). Or again: 'All Darwinians have difficulty in reconciling
competition, which is supposed to drive evolution, and cooperation,
which holds societies together' (p. 60). Or finally: 'the
neo-Darwinists ... insist that it is our genes that decide behavior'
(p. 201).
But Darwin never said that evolution was blind. Instead he emphasized
deliberation and cunning. Furthermore, although the reconciliation of
competition with cooperation has interesting technical problems, it
was upheld by Darwin himself and has pride of place in the modern,
rigorous theory of group selection, developed by writers such as
Joseph Henrich, Elliott Sober, and David Sloan Wilson. Finally, few
'neo-Darwinians' allege that genes actually 'decide' behavior.
Sociobiologists such as Edward Wilson actually propose that genes
help to determine the repertoire of behavioral possibilities and
other factors do the deciding.
In concentrating on gene-centered accounts of Darwinism, Snooks
largely ignores the modern literature on cultural and institutional
evolution, where transmission takes place at levels other than that
of the gene. He thus neglects the earlier work of Thorstein Veblen,
and omits modern Darwinian theories of 'coevolution,' or 'dual
inheritance' by Robert Boyd, William Durham, Peter Richerson and
others.
Snooks claims that Darwinism focuses on outcomes, whereas his own
theory concentrates on processes. Again this is a monstrous
distortion of Darwinism. As Veblen recognized long ago, the very
essence of Darwinism is the causal explanation of process. And as
Dennett elaborated in his 1994 book on _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, the
revolutionary character of Darwinism resides largely in its
_algorithmic_ theory involving step-by-step explanations of process.
Snooks rarely retreats from his extreme caricatures of 'Darwinism'
and 'neo-Darwinism.' In one statement where he does so, he describes
'the core' of his 'disagreement with Darwin' in the following terms:
'An individual's role in life is a function of its contribution to
the _strategic pursuit_ ... Individuals specialize according to
comparative advantage and cooperate in their society's strategic
pursuit in order to maximize the probability of their survival and
prosperity' (p. 64). Remarkably there is nothing in this statement
that undermines the assertions of Darwin or Darwinism. The idea of
organisms adopting strategies for survival and fitness is central to
Darwinian biology. Overall, Snooks is chasing a phantom Darwinism
that exists in his imagination rather than in reality.
The New Laws of Life
Snooks' alternative is described as 'the dynamic-strategy theory of
life.' (Strange, because Darwinism embraces both dynamism and
strategy.) This includes the foremost proposal of 'the competitive
driving force of individual organisms to survive and prosper.'
(Strange, but this sounds much like Darwin's 'struggle for
existence.')
Snooks goes on to propose that organisms adopt 'dynamic strategies'
in response to their circumstances. Such 'strategies' include genetic
change, technological change, family multiplication, commerce and
conquest. The 'constraining force' is the 'eventual exhaustion' of
the dominant adopted strategy. To this he adds the possibility of
'random' exogenous shocks.
Snooks thus claims 'an observable pattern and an existential meaning'
to all life: 'The rise and fall of species and of dynasties, the
great genetic and technological revolutions, the great dispersions,
civil wars, world wars, and extinctions are all part of a whole. They
are the outcome of individual organisms attempting, through the
pursuit of a range of dynamic strategies, to gain access to resources
so as to survive and prosper' (p. 217). Again there is some
resemblance to Darwinism here. However, what is lacking in Snooks'
statement, but is found in Darwinism, is a method of explaining why
organisms choose one strategy rather than another. In Darwinism this
involves the principle of selection, not only of genes, but also --
much more importantly in the human context -- of culturally
transmitted dispositions. Indeed, in general, Snooks' 'breakthrough'
theory bears some resemblance to the Darwinism he dismisses but is
inferior to Darwinism in lacking a framework for reaching a full
causal explanation of all the steps in the process. Snooks writes of
'the _strategic desire_ of mankind for survival and prosperity' (p.
102), but provides an inadequate causal explanation of this desire,
and of the strategic choices that result. Darwinism attempts to fill
this gap.
The causal gap is exemplified in statements such as the following:
'Intelligence was a response to strategic demand generated by those
individuals who were pioneering the exploitation of strategic
opportunities opened up by the demise of the dinosaurs' (p. 184).
This statement lacks an account what caused the 'response.' Pointing
to a strategic need does not answer this question, unless we admit an
untenable functionalism where things happen somehow in response to a
systemic need for them to occur.
On the partial resemblance of Snooks' theory to Darwinism, consider
his account of 'the law of motivation in life,' which 'states that
the constant preoccupation of organisms throughout the history of
life is the struggle to survive and prosper _under varying degrees of
scarcity_' (p. 283, my emphasis). Scarcity is again rehabilitated in
Snooks' remark that 'decisionmaking is based on the need to economize
on nature's scarcest resources -- intelligence' (p. 202). Snooks here
seems to have forgotten his earlier invectives against Darwin's
presumption of omnipresent scarcity.
Snooks gets so carried away with his new 'laws of life' that he
rehearses them in circumstances where the empirical evidence is
inadequate, against his own invocation of the principle of induction.
He dismisses theories of dinosaur extinction involving the impact of
asteroids or comets. Instead, he argues that 'unsustainable pressure
was placed on available natural resources, and there was an
increasing degradation of the global environment, a loss of
ecological balance, and a widespread adoption of the conquest
strategy. This led to a "world war" between the various species of
the dinosaur dynasty. It was a struggle to the death' (p. 180). This
is clearly an example of highly speculative and incomplete
theoretical explanations getting way ahead of all the available
evidence.
Conclusion
What is scarce in this volume is a good dose of intellectual
humility. Apart from its grand ambition to demolish one great theory
and replace it with another of equivalent standing, it is often
rambling and repetitive. Even on his own ground of economics, it
makes significant errors. For example, we are told that T. R. Malthus
'advocated a policy of unfettered competition at home and abroad' (p.
9). In fact, Malthus opposed laissez faire and supported the
protectionist Corn Laws. We are told that J. R. Commons in 1934 made
a distinction between organizations and institutions (p. 271), which
is also untrue.
In proclaiming its theoretical collapse, Snooks predicts that the
current 'popularity of Darwinism will be short-lived' (p. 8). I am
often reluctant to make predictions, but I hazard three here, for the
next twenty years. I predict that Snooks will continue, at most, to
have a minimal impact with his ideas in reputable, refereed, academic
journals. I predict that Snooks' 'theory of life' or 'laws of life'
will be largely unvisited and eventually forgotten. I predict that
Darwin's reputation as one of the greatest thinkers in the last two
hundred years will be preserved, if not enhanced.
Geoffrey M. Hodgson is editor-in-chief of the _Journal of
Institutional Economics_, and author of _The Evolution of
Institutional Economics: Agency, Structure and Darwinism in American
Institutionalism_ (Routledge, London, 2004).
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