Apparently I have the reputation of being a “lumper.” The subject came up last month when I was
visiting my friend Tim Pearce, curator of mollusks at the Carnegie Museum in
Pittsburgh. Tim asked me a question, which
was not actually in the form of a question, but rather phrased as a “philosophy
of classification,” upon which he invited me to comment. Tim’s proposition was
as follows:
In the face of uncertainty, it is better to split than to lump. Because if additional information subsequently becomes available suggesting that two taxa you have split should have been lumped, it will be trivially easy to lump them. But if additional information becomes available suggesting that two taxa you have lumped should have been split, your entire data set may have been ruined, because information has been lost.
My first response to Tim was that I’ve never been in such a
position. And my second response was
that I could not imagine how such a situation could ever exist.
Is our ignorance complete and our uncertainty absolute, such
that we have no existing taxonomy to guide us, no reference works of any sort
to fall back on, nor any data to point us in one direction or the other? And is somebody now holding a pistol to our
heads, forcing us to make our decision?
We can’t simply leave the organisms unclassified?
The situation seems to be that we have been transported in
shackles to Brazil, and made to classify beetles for our supper, without a
guidebook. I actually could not make my
mind address Tim’s premise.
And then it occurred to me that Tim had phrased his
proposition not as a question of science, but as a “philosophy of
classification." And it dawned on
me that he and I were speaking different languages.
At dinner that evening Tim and I sorted the situation
out. As a museum curator, Tim spends
most of his professional life with what we resolved to call a “Worldview of
Information.” He shares this worldview
with print publishers, almost everybody involved in the (rapidly becoming
omnipresent) internet, and anybody who may be left in the (rapidly becoming
obsolescent) library. Tim’s primary
focus is not on the production of information, but on its management,
organization, storage, and retrieval.
I spend most of my professional life with a Worldview of
Science. Science is the construction of
testable models about the natural world.
The Worldview of Science is not incompatible with that of Information,
of course. When I publish a new
hypothesis, or gather data supporting an existing hypothesis, I create
information. But Science is not
compatible with an Information Worldview, either. Because I focus on the quality of a model –
old or new, good or bad – with no regard whatsoever for the organization,
storage or retrieval of the information that will be generated as a byproduct.
The existence of parallel worldviews, each with its own
language, culture, values and assumptions, has been a recurring theme on this
blog for quite a few years now. Most
often I have contrasted the Worldview of Science with that of Politics and
Public Policy – hit the “Science and Public Policy” tag at right for more [1]. I also posted one essay (back in February,
2011) contrasting Science with the Worldview of Art [2].
Religious faith is another obvious example of a parallel
worldview. I have a great deal of
experience in the relationship between Science and Religion, although I have
not published on this blog about the subject.
In other fora [3] I have compared that relationship to playing baseball
and playing the banjo - neither more valid or more true, neither better nor
worse, not incompatible, but not compatible, either. Simply, profoundly different.
Subatomic particles are too small to see, but physicists can
tell they are there when they run into each other. The various Worldviews I have catalogued
above – Art, Science, Politics, Religion and Information – are too big to
see. But one can tell they are there
when they run into each other.
I have long derived embarrassing levels of schadenfreude
from the Creation/Evolution controversy because I enjoy watching at least three
[4] worlds collide - Science, Faith, and Politics. Sitting in a meeting of the Senate Education
Committee hearing testimony on creationist legislation we can watch baseball
teams and bluegrass bands trying to drive nails with banjos and catcher's
mitts, before a crew of carpenters. I
find this intellectually fascinating.
Science and Religion can collect Information into a
three-world collision as well. A google
search on the keyword "evolution," for example, will return a
steaming bouillabaisse of Science and Religion mingled in baffling
fashion. My good friend Kelly Smith from
the Philosophy Department at Clemson has recently indicted the Information community
for aiding and abetting Religion in its ongoing attacks on Science [5].
But the first commandment in Tim’s worldview is this:
"Thou Shalt Not Lose Thy Information." So seen in that light, his question about
lumping and splitting put me in the position of a heathen, standing before the
Spanish Inquisition. Who could have
expected that?
And my first commandment is this: "Thy Model Shalt be
the Best." As a scientist, I am
horrified not simply by the quality of the information on “Wikipedia,” but indeed
by the very concept of open publication itself [6]. I've spent a lot of time working with the
NCBI GenBank in recent months, for example, and it turns out they will let any
bonehead upload any string of the characters A, T, G, and C and call it
anything. The NCBI online resource may
be dressed up like Science, but it is no more scientific than the B-Minor
Mass. And I don’t much care for Bach.
 |
| Ian Barbour |
My favorite treatment of worldview collision is that of the
distinguished philosopher Ian Barbour [7].
Barbour's work specifically addresses the relationship between Science
and Religion, but his ideas will generally apply to the relationship between
Science and Public Policy, or Science and Information, for that matter. In addition to conflict, Barbour has proposed
three other forms of worldview interaction: independence, dialogue, and
integration.
Independence is the model that Steven J. Gould famously called
"Nonoverlapping Magisteria [8]."
And independence does indeed describe the actual relationship between
baseball teams and bluegrass bands quite accurately. Nobody has ever tried to bring a banjo into
the batter's box, as far as I know.
All of the problems I have outlined above, however, arise from the
intellectual appeal of integration.
Preachers do in fact propose science from their pulpits, and scientists
do in fact propose public policy in their seminars, metaphorically carrying
their banjos into batter’s boxes with the regularity of the tides. In such situations, the only alternative to
conflict is dialogue.
The first steps toward peace between two peoples are taken
when those peoples begin to understand that they are, in fact, two
peoples. So I welcomed the dialogue Tim
and I had in Pittsburgh last month, and do hope it will continue. I am more than happy to let colleagues from
the Worldview of Information handle all matters of data flow, storage, and
retrieval. We should be pleased if they
would leave the Science to scientists.
Notes
[1] Worldview
collision is most explicitly addressed here:
Idaho Springsnail Panel Report [23Dec05]
When Pigs Fly in Idaho [30Jan06]
Red Flags, Water Resources, and Physa natricina [12Mar08]
Mobile Basin IV: Goniobasis WTFs [13Nov09]
[3] Only for those of
you who can speak (or at least read) Religion!
- Dillon, R. T. (2008) Stonewall, Woodrow, and Me: Reflections on the other great commission. SciTech, The journal of the Presbyterian Association on Science, Technology, and the Christian Faith 17(3): 7 - 9. [pdf]
- Dillon, R. T. (2011) Charles Darwin and Theodicy. (A celebrity death match between Rob Dillon and Francisco Ayala!) SciTech, The journal of the Presbyterian Association on Science, Technology, and the Christian Faith 20(1): 1-3. [pdf]
- Dillon, R. T. (2012) Science and the Christian Religion: A Sermon in Three Acts. Preached at Circular Congregational Church, Charleston, SC. February 12, 2012. [pdf]
[4] I see three worlds colliding because I can understand
their three languages. I am fluent in
both Science and Religion, and speak some Politics. The Worldview of Education is also always
represented in the constituency at hearings on creationist legislation,
although silently. On rare occasions
somebody seems to attempt a pidgin form of Business and Commerce (“A rigorous
science curriculum is necessary to advance South Carolina’s
competitiveness.”) But I don't speak any
Money at all.
[5] Smith, Kelly C. (2012)
I Also Survived a Debate with a Creationist (with Reflections on the Perils of Democratic Information). Reports of the National Center for Science
Education 32(2): 6. [pdf]
[6] The irony of publishing this statement in a blog post
does not escape me.
[7] Barbour got his Ph.D. in Physics from Chicago in 1950, swapping over for a B.Div.
from the Yale Divinity School in 1956. He taught for many years at Carleton College, retiring in 1986. In 1999 he was awarded a Templeton Prize, punching his ticket on the crazy train. Barbour has written at least 6 – 8 books in his long career, my favorite being When Science Meets Religion (2000).
from the Yale Divinity School in 1956. He taught for many years at Carleton College, retiring in 1986. In 1999 he was awarded a Templeton Prize, punching his ticket on the crazy train. Barbour has written at least 6 – 8 books in his long career, my favorite being When Science Meets Religion (2000).
[8] Gould, S. J. (1999) Rocks of Ages: Science and religion
in the fullness of life. Ballentine.
Posts
"And is somebody now holding a pistol to our heads, forcing us to make our decision? We can’t simply leave the organisms unclassified?" No you can do what a lot of geneticists do. When it comes to 4th and 1 they punt. Seems kind of invertebrate-like to me.
ReplyDelete"But Science is not compatible with an Information Worldview, either. Because I focus on the quality of a model – old or new, good or bad – with no regard whatsoever for the organization, storage or retrieval of the information that will be generated as a byproduct." I would say this is complete nonsense. Systematics AND taxonomy are science. The naming of organisms (wheter it's lumping and splitting) ARE hypotheses that are testable. They also function as a means of communicating science. Where would you be if in the process of gathering data (names) for your FGNA project everyone had punted?
OK, I'll bite.
ReplyDeleteIf Rob's first commandment is: "Thy Model Shalt be the Best"
The Best what?
The Best for what?
And does Science permit only one answer to this question?
I'll go out on a limb and posit that different species concepts persit because each "best" serves the needs of a particular community.
Typically the scientific model that yields the most accurate predictions is considered "best." So for example, the Weatherman on our local Charleston Channel 2 uses six models to forecast the track of hurricanes. (Google "spaghetti models" for more!) I feel sure that eventually, as data accumulate matching the actual paths of hurricanes to all the multi-colored predictions available, the strands of spaghetti will converge on a single best model.
ReplyDeleteThe first scientific model for the origin of species was Charles Darwin's, of course, although a great deal of progress has been made in 150 years, including the development of a firm definition of the word, "species." It turns out that research in this area is hard. So hard, in fact, that a bunch of gene-tree jocks have begun a campaign to change the definition of the word "species" to something easier. It is as though my Channel 2 Weatherman decided to define Carnival Cruise Ships as hurricanes, so that he could predict hurricanes with greater accuracy.
Well put, I agree! Science should be favor models with predictive accuracy. It was your strong stand on lumping vs. splitting that brought to mind cases like this:
ReplyDeleteSuppose you have genus with five species. Four seem to have slightly more in common with each other than they do with the fifth species, so a researcher puts the fifth species in its own subgenus. Another researcher then comes along and with the same data elevates the subgenus into a new sister genus.
What possible empirical test can say who's right? Subgenus or sister genus? To lump or to split?
If the choice is independent of the data is it inconsequential? Perhaps, and yet the re-printing of every field guide on the subject will hang on the answer.
So, the "best" nomenclature choice can't simply be about about making predictions and being best at fitting the data. I'm suggesting that when multiple choices can "fit" the data equally well our selection is legitimately about the best communication of the data. That brings us into the realm of shared conventions of usage (which may differ from one social group to another, and which may be unreflectively traditional or deliberately chosen) and what aspects and uses of the data are valued most highly by the group.
In other words, nomenclature is as much an art as a science. (I was about to say "Science is as much an art as a science", but that seemed like an unecessarily paradoxical way to communicate my point)