Problems,
Difficulties, Objections
Problems,
Difficulties, Objections
A very popular error: having the
courage of one's
convictions; rather it is a matter of having
the
courage for an attack upon one's
convictions!
--
Friedrich Nietzsche
In his Autobiography, Charles Darwin wrote:
I had during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.
Now, I have many theories, many beliefs, many ideas and opinions. Most likely, they're not all correct. (Does that let me in for a version of the lottery paradox? -- if so, then it's certain they're not all correct!) Like at least some of the people who share being many-opinioned with me, I'm aware of this, and like some of them, there are particular problems, difficulties, objections that bother me, disturb me, make me uncomfortable, work their way under my skin -- despite the fact that they don't (so far!) persuade me to change my mind.
Two things are suggested. One is that I may not pay enough attention to the troublesome items I've noticed. I may not remember them all when it's relevant. Another is that maybe there are objections that should make me uncomfortable but don't -- because I've forgotten them. In other words, I may suffer from Darwin's problem. It is easy -- far too easy -- to forget an objection. So, if I suffer from his problem, it behooves me to follow his example.
That's what this page is for: to record problems with and objections to my own views that make me uncomfortable. And not just to do it, but to do it in public and soliciting help from others. Anyone is welcome to look here -- either in search of ammunition to be used against me, to add to the supply, or to offer me solutions I haven't thought of.
That makes the page (I hope!) Darwinian in a couple of ways -- first, in inspiration, and second, as an arena in which to test ideas for fitness and where any that don't measure up can be improved or eliminated.
The Darwinian inspiration for the page makes it seem fitting that the first entry should be a worry about evolutionary theory. Here's the problem that worries me.
Human beings have 46 chromosomes, 23 contributed by each sex in reproduction. Most other animals have variations on the same pattern, half the chromosomes contributed by each sex. In the course of animal evolution, some kind of mutation must have changed the number of chromosomes contributed by each organism many times. Our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees, have 48. At some point -- maybe more than one -- in the lineages that led to modern humans and to modern chimpanzees, there were animals that had different chromosome numbers than their parents. Notice also and especially that the change has to be discrete rather than gradual: If my offspring, due to some mutation, doesn't get 46 chromosomes, it will have to be (say) 44 or 48, never 46 3/4 or 45 1/2. Suppose my kid does have 44 chromosomes. Suppose also that the mutation responsible for this is beneficial, that is, that it confers some advantage on its carrier. How, though, will that beneficial mutation be passed on to the next generation? Why won't the fact that my kid will only find normal 46-chromosomed humans to mate with insure that, if she has any offspring at all, they will be infertile -- and thus the supposedly beneficial mutation passes from the scene?
So, how does large-scale animal evolution occur at all? Why don't all mutations that alter chromosome number disappear in a single generation?
(A biochemist I know tells me it's not a big problem for plant evolution.)
Answer Found (at the Talk.Origins Archive): http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jan99.html
I'm opposed to capital punishment. One of the main reasons is that it's hard to imagine a workable institutional framework that will convict people of capital crimes without running a serious risk of convicting and executing innocent people. And procedural safeguards to reduce the risks are bound to reduce any deterrent effect. In the limiting case, sufficient safeguards to insure that no innocent person is executed will effectively insure that no one is executed at all, and will thus amount to a conversion of de jure capital punishment into de facto life imprisonment -- but at the cost of accommodating extensive appeal arrangements. The lawyers might like it, but there's no particular reason to suppose that deterrence, if that's the relevant point, would be greater than if sentences for capital cases were initially set to life without parole.
Of course, we can't have iron-clad guarantees in any area of the legal system, but the problem here seems especially bad. For other punishments, mistakes can be admitted and compensation can be attempted. For capital punishment, that's not even an option: if we discover a mistake, nothing can be done for the mistakenly executed.
Recently, I saw a proposal (in an op-ed column) that appears to circumvent most such concerns. It had several elements. First, the death penalty would not be attached to any particular crime. Instead, in addition to penal arrangements, a point system would be developed that ranked crimes in terms of their seriousness. Points would be assigned reflecting things like the number of victims, the amount of harm done to each (a white-collar criminal who defrauded a bunch of people of small sums could accumulate lots of points) and aggravating factors, such as the use of violence. Second, building of new prison facilities would stop. Only maintenance, repair and replacement would be budgeted. Finally, when the prison population exceeded capacity, the prisoners in the top 10% of point-scores would be executed. And voilá! -- extra cells are available to accommodate the newly convicted.
Note that in effect this would mean that no one runs the risk of getting the death penalty for a single crime, and therefore does not risk it over some miscarriage of justice in a single trial. The only people who will get executed will be repeat offenders who have been convicted multiple times of relatively serious crimes. Further, because it's based on a point system and not upon the outcome of some particular trial, it can be expected to be relatively -- more so than current arrangements -- color-blind. Third, it may have a positive effect on recidivism. The person who gets out of prison has a strong incentive not to become a repeat offender.
Got problems? Let me know ....
