ANT336H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Proximate And Ultimate Causation, G&L Musical Instruments, Paradigm Shift
7 Oct 2013
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Document Summary
Parsimony is sometimes known as occam"s razor (the razor cuts the shit) has become a principle operating rule of science. If something is not parsimonies that doesn"t mean it"s wrong. Primate behaviours: the common chimp and the bonobo handle conflict in very different ways. We assume parsimony because that is what common scientists do, however sometimes parsimony is not warranted. Paradigms date back to the book the structure of scientific revolutions. When a paradigm shift occurs it can sometimes be very traumatic for the scientists and the science of that time. Discussed by gould and lewontin: proximate and ultimate. Ultimate causation ex. is that if you didn"t have the proximate causation to say you are hungry you would starve. Falsifiability is complementary to g&l ideas and theories. If it is scientific there has to be a falsifiably condition there has to be something that is unexplainable (a theory that explains everything actually explains nothing) not all paradigms explain everything.
