- Re: Go live on a resrvation. :-) Archived Message
Posted by Ian M
on May 26, 2019, 1:15 pm, in reply to "Go live on a resrvation. :-)"
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Well if global changes make civilisation impossible (personally I think peak oil is still more likely to be the clincher on that) then there won't be anything to 'come out' to and no colonial/occupying power to declare which land it has 'reserved' for an indigenous population (until it decides otherwise). All the more reason to brush up on those skills now. Have you got your hemlock sorted out from your wild carrot yet? Best to scratch the roots first to get the smell fyi... Anyway it seems you're happy to just take the piss. If you ever feel like reconsidering your views this paper might be of interest for starters (though I don't know where he got the idea that h/gers' view of their surroundings is 'relatively superficial'...): ***** http://cogprints.org/2236/1/Roots-of-science.htm Relevant sections: '2.2 Hunter�gatherer science Is there any evidence that hunter�gatherer communities engage in activities which resemble science? It is a now familiar and well-established fact that hunter�gatherers have an immense and sophisticated (if relatively superficial) understanding of the natural world around them. They have extensive knowledge of the plant and animal species in their environments � their kinds, life-cycles, and characteristic behaviours � which goes well beyond what is necessary for survival (Atran, 1990; Mithen, 1990, 1996). But it might be claimed that the cognitive basis for acquiring this sort of knowledge is mere inductive generalisation from observed facts. It might appear that hunter�gatherers don�t really have to engage in anything like genuine theorising or model-building in order to gain such knowledge. Nor (except in their magic) do they seem, on the face of it, to rely on inferences concerning the unobserved. On the contrary, it can easily appear as if mere careful observation of the environment, combined with enumerative induction, is sufficient to explain everything that they know.[4] In fact this appearance is deceptive, and at least some of the knowledge possessed by hunter�gatherers concerns facts which they have not directly observed, but which they know by means of inference to the best explanation of signs which they can see and interpret (Mithen, this volume). For example, the !X� hunter�gatherers of the Kalahari are able to understand some of the nocturnal calls of jackals as a result of studying their spoor the next day and deducing their likely activities; and they have extensive knowledge of the lives of nocturnal animals derived from study of their tracks, some of which has only recently been confirmed by orthodox science (Liebenberg, 1990). But it is the reasoning in which hunters will engage when tracking an animal which displays the clearest parallels with reasoning in science, as Liebenberg (1990) argues at length in his wonderful but little-noticed study in anthropology and philosophy of science. (Anyone who was ever tempted to think that hunter�gatherers must be cognitively less sophisticated than ourselves should read this book.) 2.3 The art of tracking It is true, but by no means obvious at first glance, that tracking will always have played a vital role in most human hunter�gatherer communities. This is not especially because tracking is necessary to locate a quarry. For while this is important in many contexts and for many types of game, it is not nearly so significant when hunting herd animals such as wildebeest. It is rather because, until the invention of the modern rifle, it would always have been rare for a hunter to bring an animal down immediately with an arrow or a spear. (And while hunting in large groups might have made it more likely that the target animal could be brought down under a volley of missiles, it would have made it much less likely that the hunters would ever have got close enough to launch them in the first place.) In consequence, much of the skill involved in hunting consists in tracking a wounded animal, sometimes for a period of days. (Even the very simplest form of hunting � namely, running an animal down � requires tracking.[5] For almost all kinds of prey animal can swiftly sprint out of easy sight, except in the most open country, and need to be tracked rapidly by a runner before they have the opportunity to rest.) For example, the !X� will generally hunt in groups of between two and four, using barbed arrows which have been treated with a poison obtained from the larvae of a particular species of beetle. An initial shot will rarely prove immediately fatal, and the poison can take between 6 and 48 hours to take effect, depending on the nature of the wound and the size of the animal. So a wounded animal may need to be tracked for considerable periods of time before it can be killed. As Liebenberg (1990) remarks, it is difficult for a city-dweller to appreciate the subtlety of the signs which can be seen and interpreted by an experienced tracker. Except in ideal conditions (e.g. firm sand or a thin layer of soft snow) a mere capacity to recognise and follow an animal�s spoor will be by no means sufficient to find it. Rather, a tracker will need to draw inferences from the precise manner in which a pebble has been disturbed, say, or from the way a blade of grass has been bent or broken; and in doing so he will have to utilise his knowledge of the anatomy and detailed behaviours and patterns of movement of a wide variety of animals.[6] Moreover, in particularly difficult and stony conditions (or in order to save time during a pursuit) trackers will need to draw on all their background knowledge of the circumstances, the geography of the area, and the normal behaviour and likely needs of the animal in question to make educated guesses concerning its likely path of travel. Most strikingly for our purposes, successful hunters will often need to develop speculative hypotheses concerning the likely causes of the few signs available to them, and concerning the likely future behaviour of the animal; and these hypotheses are subjected to extensive debate and further empirical testing by the hunters concerned. When examined in detail these activities look a great deal like science, as Liebenberg (1990) argues. First, there is the invention of one or more hypotheses (often requiring considerable imagination) concerning the unobserved (and now unobservable) causes of the observed signs, and the circumstances in which they may have been made. These hypotheses are then examined and discussed for their accuracy, coherence with background knowledge, and explanatory and predictive power.[7] One of them may emerge out of this debate as the most plausible, and this can then be acted upon by the hunters, while at the same time searching for further signs which might confirm or count against it. In the course of a single hunt one can see the birth, development, and death of a number of different �research programmes� in a manner which is at least partly reminiscent of theory-change in science (Lakatos, 1970). 2.3 Tracking: art or science? How powerful are these analogies between the cognitive processes involved in tracking, on the one hand, and those which underlie science, on the other? First of all we should note one very significant disanalogy between the two. This is that the primary goal of tracking is not an understanding of some general set of processes or mechanisms in nature, but rather the killing and eating of a particular animal. And although knowledge and understanding may be sought in pursuit of this goal, it is knowledge of the past and future movements of a particular prey animal, and an understanding of the causal mechanisms which produced a particular set of natural signs which is sought, in the first instance. (Of course the hunters may also hope to obtain knowledge which will be of relevance to future hunts.) This disanalogy is sufficient, in my view, to undermine any claim to the effect that tracking is a science. Since it doesn�t share the same universal and epistemic aims of science, it shouldn�t be classed as one. But although it isn�t a science, it is perfectly possible that the cognitive processes which are involved in tracking and in science are broadly speaking the same. So we can still claim that the basic cognitive processes involved in each are roughly identical, albeit deployed in the service of different kinds of end. Indeed, it is just such a claim which is supported by the anthropological data. First of all, it is plain that tracking, like science, frequently involves inferences from the observed to the unobserved, and often from the observed to the unobservable as well. Thus a tracker may draw inferences concerning the effects which a certain sort of movement by a particular kind of animal would have on a certain kind of terrain (which may never actually have been observed previously, and may be practically unobservable to hunter�gatherers if the animal in question is nocturnal). Or a tracker may draw inferences concerning the movements of a particular animal (namely the one he had previously shot and is now tracking) which are now unobservable even in principle, since those movements are in the past. Compare the way in which a scientist may draw inferences concerning the nature of a previously unobserved and practically unobservable entity (e.g. the structure of DNA molecules before the invention of the electron microscope), or concerning the nature of particles which are too small to be observable, by means of an inference to the best explanation from a set of broadly-observational data. Second, it is plausible that the patterns of inference engaged in within the two domains of tracking and science are isomorphic with one another. In each case inferences to the best explanation of the observed data will be made, where the investigators are looking for explanations which will be simple, consistent, explanatory of the observational data, coherent with background beliefs, maximal in explanatory scope (relevant to the aims of the enquiry, at least), as well as fruitful in guiding future patterns of investigation. And in each case, too, imaginative�creative thinking has a significant � nay, crucial � role to play in the generation of novel hypotheses. Let me say something more about the role of creative thinking in tracking and in science. It is now widely accepted that inductivist methodologies have only a limited part to play in science. Noticing and generalising from observed patterns cannot carry you very far in the understanding of nature. Rather, scientists need to propose hypotheses (whether involving theories or models) concerning the underlying processes which produce those patterns. And generating such hypotheses cannot be routinised. Rather, it will involve the imaginative postulation of a possible mechanism � guided and constrained by background knowledge, perhaps, but not determined by it. Similarly, a hunter may face a range of novel observational data which need interpreting. He has to propose a hypothesis concerning the likely causes of that data � where again, the hypothesis will be guided and constrained by knowledge of the circumstances, the season, the behaviour of different species of animal and so on, but is not by any means determined by such knowledge. Rather, generating such hypotheses requires creative imagination, just as in science. These various continuities between tracking and science seem to me sufficient to warrant the following claim: that anyone having a capacity for sophisticated tracking will also have the basic cognitive wherewithal to engage in science. The differences will be merely these - differences in overall aim (to understand the world in general, as opposed to the movements of a given animal in particular); differences of belief (including methodological beliefs about appropriate experimental methods, say); as well as some relatively trivial differences in inferential practices (such as some of the dispositions involved in doing long-division sums, or in solving differential equations). In which case some version of the continuity hypothesis can be regarded as established. We can assert that the cognitive processes of hunter�gatherers and modern scientists are broadly continuous with one another, and that what was required for the initiation of the scientific revolution were mostly extrinsic changes, or changes relating to peripheral (non-basic) aspects of cognition, such as mere changes of belief.' ***** cheers, I |