Thread by @swardley

X : Have you come across Margaret Mead in your work?
Me : I would imagine it would be difficult not to.
X : Thoughts?
Me : My nature is I tend to accentuate flaws. Though I see far more flaws with Freeman's analysis of Mead. I'm also a geneticist by training which means ...

... on the whole nature vs nurture style of debate then I'm both with a heavy dose of cross generational inheritance of environmental factors. I often find the debate to be too reductionist e.g. selfish genes etc.

You have to remember that when I grew up in genetics there was a sudden explosion in gene sequencing machines and obviously that meant a lot of promotion of the idea that it was all about the "sequence" ... that's just one part of the story.

When I talk to friends that are still in the field, it has course corrected back to where it was i.e. the rise of epigenetics is just another way of saying "it's not just the sequence people, despite your spanking new sequencing machine".

X : Do you agree with evolutionary theory?
Me : Errr ... well, we're here aren't we? The theory of evolution is built on a tautology i.e. if we talk about survival of the fittest then we define the fittest as those that survive - it's all about survival of the survivors.

... so we have models to explain inheritance of characteristics, models to explain competition, models on energy use and ... well, it's models all the way down. But that's science. It's simply our best models to explain an observation until a better model comes along.

.... hence when you ask me "do I agree" well ... yes, these are the best models we have.

If you asked me "is it right" ... well, no. But in the meantime these are the best models we have until better models come along.

Science isn't about being right, it's about better models.

X : Don't models limit your perception of a space?
Me : Of course. It's the same with maps, not only are they imperfect representations, they have symbolism and are models. This is why you never believe a map, it's just a useful guide. But then even "reality" is interpreted.

... the desire to be objective is nothing more than a desire, an intention. There is always perception and the simple act of observation is not neutral to the space. You cannot take the experimenter out of the experiment, they are part of the system.

You can try to observe at a distance which brings up back to Margaret Mead - there is some very good stuff there. But I emphasise the "try" ... if you ever start believing that you're not part of the experiment you're trying to observe then you've got problems.

It's like people asking how to create a perfect map. It would have to be the same size as the landscape and obviously we can't have someone invoking perception - it's an impossible thing to create, the unobserved map. More importantly, it would also be useless.

So, I often joke that I have a perfect map of France in my pocket. It's the same size as France (being perfect) but I can't show you it because by observing it then it would no longer be perfect.

I suppose the answer (if there is such a thing) that people pursue in science is not about being right (it's accepted that all models are wrong) but as my friend @snowded says ... it's about being coherent.