soc.culture.scientists posting

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

I am posting the following to soc.culture.scientists in response to an
ongoing thread.  It occurs to me that there has been little discussion of
how we want to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis using Lojban in recent
years.  Is there any interest in discussing this on this forum at this
time?

lojbab
============
Subject: Re: Language and Language Traps in Science
Newsgroups: soc.culture.scientists
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
Keywords: Darwinism, social darwinism, eugenics, Sapir-Whorf, Loglan/Lojban

From: Benjamin.J.Tilly@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly)
>Why has this thread not drawn more interest?  I can think of a number of
>interesting examples of how language causes people to come to false
>results.  For example after Darwin's theory of evolution came forward
>there were attempts to apply it to the social sciences.  Survival of the
>fittest was consistently misunderstood since people thought of fittest
>as meaning the people who were well-off.  But since those people tend to
>have smaller families they were actually *less* evolutionarily fit than
>the poor.

I'm not sure this is true.  You are assuming a different meaning of
"fittest":  numerical domination of the population.  This might be
called the 'democratic fallacy'.  From the opposing point of you that
you stated, assuming that the well-off are therefor more fit might be
called the 'elitist fallacy'.

Either or both may be fallacious.  Possibly both may have their niche.

I am skeptical of the democratic fallacy (that the well-off are less
evolutionarily fit) by the following reasoning:

In our society(s), someone who is well off has more material goods to
inherit.  Unlike genetic traits, material goods are not usually shared.
By having fewer heirs, those goods are split among a smaller number of
people, who then have a nice nest egg to start with.

Successful people (by some definitions) are those who tend to increase
their wealth during their lives.  Thus, if a particular strain of
'well-off' people are successful and minimize their numbers of heirs
(while continuing to have at least one and to pass wealth to the heirs),
the wealth of the well-off continues to increase.

In modern society (and indeed most societies), wealth means power
and/or influence over others.  It often means more/better choices in
mating opportunities, better access to education and medicine (things
that are strongly correlated with survival and prosperity).

There are social and biological traits that can interfere with what
would be an otherwise infinitely increasing spiral of wealth.  As you
note, increased wealth leads to reduced progeny; sometimes it can lead
to dispersal of wealth at death other than to heirs (which result occurs
less often in the less well-off), inbreeding, putting all ones 'genetic
investment' in a single offspring 'basket' that might for social or
biological reason NOT continue the trend of increase.  Then there are
wars and revolutions that can lead to massive overturning of the
distribution of wealth.  And democracy and anti-elitism is a
counter-force against the spiral of wealth, although a relatively recent
one (perhaps it is a newly evolved strategy for the less well-off masses
to overcome the evolutionary advantage of wealth).

But for the most part, the well-off stay well-off and powerful over long
periods of time.  The Dupont family is a lot richer than I will ever be,
both collectively and individually.  And they will likely pass on their
genes and their cultural/social values to later generations more
effectively than I will.  Likewise, I suspect that I have similar
advantages over someone living in an American inner-city slum, who in
turn may or may not have advantages over a massively reproducing family
line in a 3rd world country (little hard to tell in this case given the
problems of our inner cities).

Indeed, faced with the extremes of the Duponts and a third world
peasant, the latter, who might produce a dozen offspring only to most or
all of them die of famine or disease, might be at a biological as well
as social disadvantage; in any case, what ends up being bred for in the
bulk of human population is the ability to survive privation.  This is
vital if we face a future of universal privation, and counterproductive
if we face continued (relative) wealth, and/or if education/intelligence
and other traits might allow humankind to more effectively survive the
stresses we are putting on the earth and on our own species.

Biology has many instances of species/breeds that produce relatively few
progeny having relative success over other species that produce more
progeny, provided that the few progeny gain advantages within their
niche to make up the lack of numbers.  Right now, it is possible to
argue that man dominates the earth (for good or bad), though we are
relatively non-fertile and slow to reproduce.  Or it is possible to
argue that insects, or even bacteria, are the dominant life form on this
planet, through sheer numbers.

Who can tell for sure?

To me, the fallacy of Social Darwinism was in turning evolution into a
basis for moral judgements, especially when it is pretty near impossible
to determine exactly what individual social or genetic traits are most
conducive to species success (or even individual success).  The
judgements of those making the decisions are of course going to be
opposed by those deemed less 'successful' which will probably in the
long term be the majority.  In modern societies, democratic values have
triumphed, and social darwinism has been culturally repudiated by most
of humankind (though many individuals still follow its premises in some
or most aspects of their lives).  (Perhaps this is for the best, too.
While most today would consider eugenics to be morally reprehensible,
there might indeed be sound *evolutionary* reasons for attempting to
breed out certain disadvantageous genetic traits, especially when we are
likely to be faced with population constraints on the planet within some
few generations).  It is not clear whether the repudiation of eugenics
or social darwinism would have been the result if Darwinism had been
conceived in some earlier time period.

I'm not taking sides on what is right or wrong, merely pointing out that
your conclusion is itself based on a potential 'trap', which we might
call "philosophical darwinism" - that the ideas that survive and spread
are necessarily the 'best' or 'most correct'.  This 'trap' seems to be
especially prevalent among the thinking of scientists, or at least those
posting on this forum, IMHO.

I am of course, especially interested in the interaction of language and
culture, and as a scientist, between language and the scientific
subculture.  The research project I've been leading, developing the
Loglan/Lojban artificial language, has as one of its goals the eventual
scientific test of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which you alluded to
later in the above posting.

I'm not prepared to post on the problem now, but it might be interesting
to see how the community of this newsgroup would address the problem of
testing the SWH scientifically, and in particular to review some of the
ideas proposed by those working on Loglan/Lojban.  If there is interest
in such a discussion, I will try to write something up.
----
lojbab                           Note new address:    lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273

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