There are some things that we can do in biology by armchair deduction - Dr. Richard Dawkins

There are some things that we can do in biology by armchair deduction - Dr. Richard Dawkins

Dr. Dawkins on proof in Biology in his speech (ad verbatim):

"Now, I have been asked to say something about proof. The word proof is strictly used by the mathematicians, you proof something when you show that it follow deductively inescapably from axioms. The Pythagorean theorem about right angle triangles which is immensely useful in all sorts of fields is proved deductively once and for all times for all right angle triangles and a plane surface, its necessarily true. You don't have to go out with a ruler and measure hundreds of triangles in order to know that Pythagoras is correct and biological facts and most things we know about biology are not like that. 

we do have to go and take lots of observations, analyse them statistically, set up hypotheses, models tested experimentally. Some philosophers would say we attempt to falsify our models, at a model that sticks its neck out, a model that's vulnerable to being falsified, yet is not falsified, is a good model, a successful model, the more vulnerable it is the more precise the predictions that could have been disproved but are not. The  more precise the predictions that are not falsified the more we are inclined to accept it as true. But this is not proof in mathematical sense, nevertheless it still powerful evidence for believing that something is true.

There are some things that we can do in biology which you could think of as armchair deductions, and I want to single out one which is close to my heart.

There is a controversy in Biology at the moment over the subject of the evolution of altruism in kin, in related organisms. For example and especially the social insects where many of you may know that the majority of Biologists interpret the astonishing feats of the social insects of ants, bees and wasps and to termites; and as a result of natural selection acting on kin the worker ant is a sterile animal which can not reproduce and the reason why workers do what they do which feed other ants feed larvae, which is protect the nest, which is take great risks and bees sting with a bard sting which kills them, they are kamikaze fighters.

The reason why sterile workers do this is that their genes, the genes that make them do it, have copies in the young reproductive, in the case of ants the young winged queens and males, and so if a genes makes a worker ant behave altruistically towards a young queen or a young male then the gene has a good chance of being in the body of that young queen which is going to reproduce or at least has a chance of reproducing.

This is the theory of kin selection and it was developed by my Oxford colleague, wasn't at Oxford then, W D Hamilton. His theory of inclusive fitness, it was renamed the theory of kin selection by John  Maynard  Smith and it has been the dominant account of the evolution of the social insects ever since in the 1960s.

[The word proof is strictly used by the mathematicians - biological facts and most things we know about biology are not like that - The  more precise the predictions that are not falsified the more we are inclined to accept it as true - But this is not proof in mathematical sense, nevertheless it still powerful evidence for believing that something is true - There are some things that we can do in biology which you could think of as armchair deductions - Wilson is in fact doing the equivalent of Pythagoras going around with a ruler and measuring hundreds of right angle triangles to see whether they obey the Pythegoras's theorem - That's not what its about - you could deduce, you can deduce Hamilton's theory of kin selection deductively from the depths of an armchair without ever leaving the armchair - Its another question entirely whether the particular idea of collateral kin actually applies in practice to a particular species - It probably does not apply.]
--- Dr. Richard Dawkins. A synopsis of the speech on Proof.

It is now under attack from, I suppose the most distinguished worker on social insects today which is E O Wilson, Edward O Wilson, who, and I don't want to go into detail but he is now saying that all that is earlier espousal of the theory of kin selection was wrong and Wilson is himself wrong in this, and I haven't time to go into it except to say that he mistakes the logical status of the theory of kin selection. He writes as though he thinks the kin selection is a new theory that has to be added to the classical neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s and forties. 

The classical neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s and forties which recast Darwinism in genetic terms, joined up Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian genetics and recast evolution as changes in gene frequencies, thats the way its been since the 1930s. Thats the Neo-Darwinian theory, thats the theory that everybody in biology subscribe to today.

Wilson talks as though Hamilton;s theory of kin selection working for collateral kin rather than your own offspring, though Hamilton's theory of kin selection is an extra theory that kind of bolted on to the Neo-Darwinian theory of 1930s. That's his mistake, it is not.

It follows deductively, mathematically from the  neo-Darwinian synthesis, as Pythegoras's theorem follows from the axioms of Euclidean geometry. Wilson is in fact doing the equivalent of Pythagoras going around with a ruler and measuring hundreds of right angle triangles to see whether they obey the Pythegoras's theorem.

That's not what its about; you could deduce, you can deduce Hamilton's theory of kin selection deductively from the depths of an armchair without ever leaving the armchair. Its another question entirely whether the particular idea of collateral kin actually applies in practice to a particular species. It probably does not apply. You don't actually need to think about collateral kin in many species of animal but the theory is still got it, still the pressure towards it is still there, and that is a deductive consequence of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis which follows inexorably, ineluctably, mathematically, deductively from the synthesis of the 1930s."

For more information, please see for the event; for Dr. Dawkins; on the Theory of Evolution ; on Charles Darwin ; on E O Wilson

Dr. Richard Dawkins in his 2013 Bicentennial Philomathean Society Annual Oration on  March 12, 2013, at   Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce Street, on "Proof, Science, and Skepticism".

The Announcement of the Speech: 

Richard Dawkins is the former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and one of the world’s most prominent evolutionary biologists and outspoken atheists. Among his books are The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable, A Devil’s Chaplain, The God Delusion, and, most recently, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. For the 2013 Bicentennial Philomathean Annual Oration, Dr. Dawkins will address the audience on the necessary role of science and skepticism in the modern world.