INFORMAL LOGIC XV.3, Fall 1993 The Appeal to Tradition: Cultural Evolution and Logical Soundness WILLIAM D. HARPINE University of Akron Key Words: Tradition; appeal to tradition; fallacies; evolutionary epistemology; adaptation; environment; neo-Darwinian theory; culture: cultural change; Boyd, Robert; Campbell, Donald T.; Richerson, Peter J.; Toulmin, Stephen E. Abstract: The Appeal to Tradition, often consid- ered to be unsound, frequently reflects sophisti- cated adaptations to the environment. Once developed, these adaptations are often transmitted culturally rather than as reasoned argument, so that people mayor may not be aware of why their traditions are wise. Tradition is more likely to be valid in a stable environment in which a wide range of variations have been available for past testing; however, traditions tend to become obsolete in a rapidly changing environment. Pascal Boyer states: An important feature of traditional practice is that, in most cases, the actors do not bother to justify or rationalise it. Typically, the an- thropologist is told "we do this because we've always done so" or "because it must be so, otherwise it would not be proper" or "because the ancestors told us to do it", and this type of statement is certainly part of the specific intellectual climate of traditional institutions, This of course does not mean that tradition- al practice is without rhyme or reason, but, more precisely, that traditional things seem to provide their own justification. (Boyer 11) That is, the appeal to traditional wisdom may be sOllfld even if the arguers are unable to offer a clear argument for their practices. Fallacious appeal to tradition is com- mon enough. At a church committee meet- ing I spoke for starting a youth choir. The appalled committee members referred to the "history" of the church, explained that we had never had a youth choir before, and changed the subject. That the church's youth program was faIling apart was, to them, beside the point. But, on the other hand, consider the world's most famous tradition. After his 1856 Grand Tour passed by the Hindu temple at Banares, New Yorker Robert Minturn remarked on the "inconveniently numerous and tame" cattle: The bull is the most sacred animal in the Hindoo mythology .... A Hindoo considers the slaughter of a bull or cow, as a greater crime than parricide; and in old times this offence was punished with death-a penalty that was long permitted to remain in force in some parts of India, by the Honourable Company ... (Minturn 140). Many India experts have argued, with con- siderable reference to evidence, that the traditional Indian practice is "irrational" (Harris, "Cultural Ecology" 51-52). Yet the tradition of not eating cows was right- and the thoroughly researched and careful- ly reasoned arguments wrong--even though for years no one really knew why. Harris observed that the animals are fed on grass and thus do not compete with hu- mans for grain. The cows give milk, which the people can drink long after the meat would be gone; dried cattle dung is care- fully collected for fertilizer and fueL Cattle are in demand as draft animals, which are perennially in short supply. And when the animals finally die, "untouchables" are of- ten called to dispose of the carcass, using nearly every scrap. Harris concludes, in es- sence, that the starving popUlation would starve sooner if they ate their cattle (Harris, "Cultural Ecology"; Harris, Cows 20-21; see also Nair 452-454). Is it a fallacy to 210 William D. Harpine appeal to the practices of traditional wis- dom in the face of seeming ly cogent, appar- ently persuasive arguments for change?l That is, can it be valid to allow more weight to tradition than to what would oth- erwise seem to be good reasons to change? The selection processes of cultural evolu- tion, this essay argues, can give a better warranty for traditional practices than ra- tional dispute about the issues. That is, everything that a people know and can fig- ure out, other than what they know about the value of tradition in general, might show a practice or belief to be unwise, and yet to adhere to it can still be justified. As the argument below explains, the appeal to traditional wisdom is of particu- lar merit when (1) the environment has been stable for a long time, so that unwise variations can be gradually weeded out and (2) when the culture is well adapted and stable. Arguments against traditional wis- dom should carry increased weight if they support (1) new variations not previously tested and discarded by the culture, or (2) variations that the culture has suppressed without testing or evaluation. The Limitations of Reason All decision making by argument in- troduces the chance of error (Boyd and Richerson, 128-130). Human beings can reason through complex problems but, giv- en the complexity of the world and of so- cial institutions, there is a good chance of miscalculating something. Any supposed illogic committed in relying on traditional wisdom must be balanced against these uncertainties, especially with respect to so- cial institutions and practices. Not only can it be difficult to predict the consequences of change, but traditional practices often have unseen advantages. Toulmin argues that " ... given the short-term character of human foresight and calculation in the social realm, it is hard to see how any sort of conscious, deliberate, calculated human decisions could have brought effective social ar- rangements into existence in the first place" (Toulmin, "Human Adaptation" 183). Because of their complexity, " .. , even middle- and longer-term changes in social institutions and political arrange- ments can scarcely be accounted for con- vincingly as the results of straightforward rational choices" (Toulmin, "Human Adaptation" 183-184), Harris, pointing out that no one ever planned the modem world, comments: , , . the major processes of cultural evolu- tion do not bear witness to our kind's abili- ty to exert conscious, intelligent control over our species' destiny. This is a para- doxical finding in view of the fact that uniquely among organisms, our brains have "minds" that are aware of the process- ing of information, the making of choices, the planning of behavior, and the intention- al effort to achieve future goals. (Harris, Our Kind 494) Among other examples, Harris points out how the automobile, developed to ease transportation, stimulated the wholesale reorganization of life in the industrialized nations. Who could have foreseen this (Harris, Our Kind 494-498)? If human so- cieties work (as many apparently do, more or less), we need an explanation why they work-and the usual panegeric on the near-divine wisdom of the human animal won't quite do. Evolutionary Epistemology, Culture, and Tradition Some philosophers, influenced by Popper, study the evolution of knowledge in relationship to the natural world. View- ing intellectual variation and selection as analogous to neo-Darwinian theory, Toulmin finds the evolution of scientific ideas "similar to other 'evolutionary' proc- esses" (Toulmin, "Human Adaptation" 188; emphasis added).2 Toulmin intends his view to be literally evolutionary ("Evo- lutionary Development" 470-471) but not literally Darwinian: the variants are not traits but variant ideas; selective pressure in the intellectual world is due to "severity of criticism" ("Evolutionary Development" 471). Critical thought gives us an alterna- tive to natural selection (Toulmin, "Human Adaptation" 192-193). Toulmin stresses that " ... the continuity and change which are characteristic of an evolving intellectu- al tradition must be related, in any such ac- count, to the processes of transmission by which the ideas in question are passed on from one generation of human 'carriers' to the next" ("Evolutionary Development" 459; emphasis added; see also Human Understanding 1 :158-161). This theory has been criticized because Toulmin clearly explains neither the origins of selection criteria nor what justifies them (Jacobs 522; Harpine 104-106). In other words, if an argument is justified by the selection criteria of the relevant rational enterprise, such as atomic physics, bio- chemistry, sociology, or anthropology, (Toulmin, Human Understanding 1: 133 ff., 146, 264, 348), what in turn justifies the enterprise's selection criteria? To Toulmin, evaluative standards are evolving concepts dependent for validity on their context ("Evolutionary Development" 465).3 Campbell offers a possible grounding for such criteria. He advocates that all human thought and behavior emerge from a "blind-variation-and-selective-retention process." Evolution requires (1) a way to produce variations, (2) predictable selec- tion processes, and (3) a method for trans- mitting successful variations (Campbell, "Evolutionary Epistemology" 421).4 Campbell holds that the capacity for thought evolved by natural selection, more abstract perceptual and cognitive standards being the higher-level "inductive" develop- ments of this process ("Evolutionary Epis- temology 450-451; "Discussion" 304; Campbell and Paller, 236-237). Although there are "many processes which shortcut a more full blind-variation-and-selective- retention process," these in turn employ The Appeal to Tradition 211 blind variation and selective retention "at some level" ("Evolutionary Epistemology" 421). Thus, although scientific knowledge is usually not survival related, science- and, presumably, other intellectual disciplines-takes advantage of cognitive abilities that were once selected for their survival value ("Evolutionary Epistemolo- gy" 450; see also Ruse, Darwinian Paradigm 223). Campbell clearly sees the importance of culture to transmit proven intellectual variants: " ... the trial-and-error explora- tion of one member of a group substitutes for, renders unnecessary, trial-and-error exploration on the part of other members" ("Evolutionary Epistemology" 431). Campbell thus argues directly for the advantages of tradition: By sociocultural evolution we mean, at a minimum, a selective cumulation of skills. technologies, recipes. beliefs, customs. or- ganizational structures, and the like, re- tained through purely social modes of transmission, rather than in the genes. Given a stability in the selective system, the cumulated culture and social system will become more and more adapted to the selective system. ("Conflict" 1104) Contending that neither biology nor indi- vidual learning suffices to explain human behavior, Campbell insists that we must also consider the "culturally inherited bag- gage of dispositions, transmitted by exam- ple, indoctrination and culturally provided limitation on perspectives and opportuni- ties. This cultural inheritance can, on evo- lutionary grounds, be regarded as adaptive, and treated with respect" ("Conflict" 1105). Admitting that some traditions are out- moded, Campbell nonetheless sympathizes with Lorenz's complaint that too many young people today reject time-tested ways ("Conflict" 1106; see Lorenz 61-63), Campbell's theory has been criticized on a number of grounds, most notably for his admittedly "dogmatic" insistence that all knowledge is the product of utterly blind variation.5 Campbell himself has 212 William D. Harpine admitted that the theory is not fully worked out ("Reprise" 381). But what, other than gut instinct, leads him to call militarism an outmoded tradition but not religious tradi- tion? For our purposes, the most important weakness of his account of tradition is that he provides no explanation of how some traditions become outmoded while others do not, nor does he provide criteria for when we should accept tradition and when we should reject it.6 Cultural Tradition and Natural Selection Cultural Inheritance Darwin developed his theory of natural selection and evolution without any knowl- edge of genetics, and so cultural evolution- ists often reason that neo-Darwinian theory can work with cultural transmission (Bettinger 181).7 Many authorities recog- nize that culture constitutes a stable system for transmitting knowledge, ideas, and so- cial practices. 8 But through culture people also shape their environment, and those as- pects of a culture over which the individual has no control become a part of the envi- ronment to which individuals must adapt. 9 Boyd and Richerson explain the advantage cultural learning enjoys over individual learning: Variants acquired by individual learning and other common forms of phenotypic flexibility are lost with the death of the in- dividual, and only the genes that underlie the capacity to learn are evolving proper- ties of the population. In contrast, cultural- ly acquired variations are transmitted from generation to generation and, like genes, they are also evolving properties of the population. (Boyd and Richerson 4) Thus, "if the locally adaptive behavior is more common than other behaviors, imita- tion provides an inexpensive way to acquire it\> (Boyd and Richerson 14-15). The ef- fects of cultural transmission can differ in specific, important ways from the effects of genetic transmission (Boyd and Richerson 198-199). People can transmit cultural knowledge and behaviors not only to birth children but to adopted children, friends, disciples, and students. Cultural transmis- sion can be vertical-from one generation to the next, or horizontal-among genera- tional peers (Boyd and Richerson II, 178). Culture and Natural Selection Whatever abilities enable us to develop cultures evolved because they gave hu- mankind a "selective advantage" (Rindos 74; see also Leakey and Lewin 190-192, 223). But the occurrence of a cultural vari- ation carries no presumption that it is adaptive; selection simply weeds out unac- ceptable variations after they occur: " ... if everyone acquires their behavior unselec- tively, there will be no force that will act to increase the frequency of adaptive traits--cultural transmission is a useful shortcut to ordinary trial-and-error learn- ing only if some force acts to increase the frequency of favorable cultural variants" (Boyd and Richerson 80). One such force, still, is natural selec- tion. A culture's selections are not neces- sarily keyed to Darwinian success-in what possible sense could ice cream and cake, thoroughly selected by North American culture, improve survival and reproduction?-but a culture whose selec- tions are consistently poor over time im- poses competitive disadvantages on its adherents (Harris, Our Kind 127). Cultural and natural selection operate not only on specific behavior but also on the culture's selection criteria. 10 These cri- teria include not only analytical criticism but also judgments of what cultural vari- ants best provide for people's comfort and satisfaction in accordance with the prefer- ences that selection has given us. Examples: Tradition Transmitted in a Stable Environment Adaptive cultural traditions can evolve in a stable or predictable environment. Several populations in the Mediterra- nean area grow and consume huge quanti- ties of fava beans, which cause a serious illness in persons who inherit a certain ge- netic trait. Surprisingly, populations in which this trait appears with high frequen- cy also eat plenty of fava beans, even though people are fully aware of the danger (Katz 133-159). If this isn't a great tribute to human illogic, what is? For thousands of years, countless people have eaten a quite unremarkable food knowing that they are risking death. But it turns out that the gene that caus- es sensitivity to fava beans also confers rel- ative resistance to malaria and was thus naturally selected in malaria-infested are- as. Unknown to the population, eating fava beans also boosts resistance to malaria. The researchers offer that eating fava beans is a culturally transmitted trait of great antiquity, that the cultural descend- ants of people who eat fava beans survived and reproduced in greater numbers by vir- tue of their resistance to malaria. Thus, a cultural trait passed down from generation to generation was naturally selected and after many generations came to dominate the population (Katz and Schall 459-476; Katz 133-159, esp. 146-155). Or consider the time tested wisdom with which my grandparents were raised as peasants in rural Europe, of which a good bit was unsuccessfully taught to me: Never be vain about anything. A large family is a blessing from God. Never miss church. Marry someone of your own religion. Respect authority. Potatoes, cheese, and eggs are the best foods. These customs were quite workable during the long centuries of feudalism. Vanity stimulates social stress in a peasant socie- ty; large families are valuable for subsist- ence farm work (Farb 133, 143); religion plays a crucial part in the peasant social or- der (Wolf 98); authorities had best be The Appeal to Tradition 213 respected because they were powerful and vindictive; and the countryside and climate were such that potatoes, cheese, and eggs provided the dense population with enough food to eke out a subsistence diet. Given the limited food supply, the people faced little danger of vascular disease de- spite the high fat diet. For the most part the population eventually forgot why these practices existed. They became traditions. Or consider folk medicine. While some folk cures have only a psychological effect, many turn out to have a scientific founda- tion (Werner 307-314); Johns reviews nu- merous traditional remedies and concludes that "Until the progress of scientific medi- cine in the last century and a half, Western medicine offered nothing superior to these remedies" (Johns 278). Yet many tradition- al cultures lack clear knowledge of how their medical knowledge was developed or transmitted (Johns 271). Among the Fang of Central Africa, for example, medical knowledge is justified by the expert opin- ion of a person who has undergone the ap- propriate initiation, and it is this initiation-more than the accompanying apprenticeship-that the people consider the basis of expert knowledge (Boyer 35). Surprising, superficially unreasonable traditional practices may have unseen ad- vantages. One example is the culturally evolved practice of clay eating. Many foods-certain potato varieties, for example~are nourishing but toxic. People who rely on these foods risk illness. Eating clay with these foods, as practiced in the mountains of Peru, detoxifies them by ab- sorbing toxic chemicals (Johns 67, 84-100). It is enough for the people to know that these traditions are traditions; it is needless for individual persons to run the grave risks of experimenting because their fore- bears have already done so for them. For such a culture, many seemingly cogent ar- guments against tradition might be worth barely a second thought: the odds are too great that the argument overlooks some- thing vital. How could any ordinary sort of 214 William D. Harpine analytical decision making process be as accurate as the traditions evolved over the generations about fava beans or sacred cat- tle? That the work of Western experts to help traditional societies often ends in fail- ure testifies that supremely educated, ana- lytically-minded groups of specialists often embrace a lesser sum of knowledge than the unthinkingly transmitted tradi- tions of an established culture (Johns 30). Examples: Tradition in an Unstable Environment Cultural transmission is more flexible than genetic transmission: human beings can observe, communicate about, and promptly adopt successful experiments, rapidly adjusting their actions to new or al- tered environments. Cultural transmission also allows for greater variation (e.g. "ec- centric" beliefs and practices; "mutation" introduced by memory lapses) than does genetic transmission (Boyd and Richerson 125; Brow 3), affording more raw material for the selection processes. But time tested social practices and be- liefs were tested in a particular environ- ment (compare Ruse, Taking Darwin 142). We can, and should, be prepared to re- think traditions when underlying circum- stances change. Suppose that the fava bean-eating countries initiate drainage and mosquito control programs that drastically reduce the incidence of malaria: the eating of fava beans would become obsolete. A modern European living on potatoes, cheese, and eggs can look forward to a stay in coronary care. The plight of the Betsileo of Malagasy highlights the dangers of failing to change a time-tested practice when times change. The religion of this pastoral-agricultural population stresses elaborate ceremonies for the dead. These feature speechmaking combined with elaborate redistributive feasting to which hosts and guests alike contribute. Kottak comments that H[iJroni- cally, for people whose ceremonial life pays so much attention to the dead, Betsileo, apparently like other Malagasy, have little to say-other than the stock in- formant's answer of 'custom'-about why they do what they do" (Kottak 229-259, esp.235). During the last century, such ceremo- nies provided many Betsileo peasants with their only chance to eat meat, and in some regions funeral committees checked that people contributed only what they could afford. These ceremonies nourish a large part of the population, which is beneficial for the majority. But recently, the expanding government has organized some Betsileo regions and taxes the feasts in these areas so as to redistribute income from the poor to the rich-who control the government. Sometimes the rich now contribute nothing to their own ceremonies; the poor can be driven into hopeless debt by ceremonial expenses. The new circumstances have made the traditional practice maladaptive in these regions, and continuing it- although consistent with Betsileo religious beliefs-has become harmful to a large part of the population (Kottak 257-259). The stock appeal to "custom" made perfect sense as long as the background of their economy stayed the same, but custom be- came less reliable in the wake of change.11 Evaluating an Appeal to Traditional Wisdom: Criteria Since it may be very difficult to ana- lyze the underlying merits of a traditional practice, a critic might instead evaluate the cultural circumstances in which the prac- tice was developed. One asks first how sta- ble the environment has been and how weII the culture's members function in general relative to the available resources. The tra- dition-bound church mentioned at the be- ginning of this essay had lost so many of its younger members as to be in danger of collapse, and its leaders' reluctance to im- prove their youth program made little sense. They may not have known what was wrong, but they knew that something was wrong and should have entertained doubts about their traditions. Their traditions were really only thirty years old, hardly the span of generations necessary to weed out un- sound variations. And they might have not- ed the dramatic changes in the surrounding community: economic development, the growth of industry, and social strife, which rendered their traditions outdated. The presumption for tradition is strongest for beliefs that affect actions and which are therefore subject to natural se- lection pressures. Consider Hume's fa- mous admission that he could neither believe nor live by his own skeptical theory when away from his study: since his daily life ignored his philosophical findings, er- rors in his theory were beyond the reach of natural selection pressures. Also, the pre- sumption of traditional wisdom is faulty for a culture that is poorly adapted to its environment: J2 a popUlation succumbing to competitive pressures should take a fresh look at its traditions. Drift, that is, random variation, can cause a small population to wander off into sub-optimal directions or could remove rare traits. Both genetic and cultural drift can become significant evolutionary forces in small populations but generally not in large populations in which chance varia- tions tend to even themselves out (Boyd and Richerson 9, 69; Sober 110-112). So, although drift cannot override natural se- lection, a critic should be aware that tradi- tions in small populations can vary due to imprecise transmission. Selection processes can prefer only those variations that exist for the individu- als in question (Braun 81). Consider again the position of peasants, who usually live a marginal subsistence existence, whose sur- plus incomes are likely to be removed by rent or taxation. Since they usually live in highly stable circumstances, peasants evolve notably adaptive traditional practic- es from the variations that are available to them. This explains why they "tend to The Appeal to Tradition 215 cleave to their traditional way of life, why they fear the new as they would fear temptation: any novelty may undermine their precarious balance;" by maintaining their internal social institutions, the "peas- ant community can ward off the further penetration of outside demands and pressures .... " (Wolf 16-17). Peasants must reject innovations just because they are innovations. But this does not mean that the peasant adaptation, which is often a rather miserable way of life, is the best of all possible alternatives for the peasant (although it is an excellent adaptation for the oppressor). Since peas- ants lack political power, the variation of not being oppressed is not available-and therefore selection processes cannot choose it. Peasants are usually very well adapted to their situation, but that does not justify the situation itself. This leads us further to Habermas's ar- gument that tradition can create social structures and power relationships that in turn constrain openness of argument ac- cording to relationships based on power or wealth. As it depends on egalitarianism, what Habermas calls enlightened dis- course " ... could be guaranteed only by the ideal conditions of general communi- cation extending to the entire public and free from domination .... The depoliticiza- tion of the mass of the population and the decline of the public realm as a political in- stitution are components of a system of domination that tends to exclude practical questions from public discussion."13 One must distinguish between a tradition vali- dated by generations of testing from one maintained by dominance; it would be invalid to appeal to tradition to reject a var- iation that had been suppressed without testing. Similarly, it would be invalid to ac- cept a tradition that exists solely because it was imposed by power, as such distortions might preclude the selection of adaptive variations. But on the other hand, the practice of insulating fundamental cultural ideas from 216 William D. Harpine criticism can have its value. Munz believes that this serves a social bonding function-that it unites a culture's mem- bers to hold uniform, unquestioned beliefs (Munz, Our Knowledge 303; Munz, "Tak- ing Darwin"). Perhaps so: but it might also insulate time-tested ideas from needless (and risky) reevaluation. Munz believes that these protected ideas are not critically evaluated, but perhaps many of them were quite thoroughly evaluated-in the forgot- ten past. Historical or archaeological study might reveal this. But more important is to distinguish traditions adopted by a down- trodden class to adapt to their circumstanc- es from those imposed by those in authority to divert resources to themselves. A stable culture's practices might be the best among those that have been tried, but new variations not tested in the past are likely to be worthy of cautious trial. Inter- cultural contact can be one rich source of new, perhaps desirable variations. For ex- ample, although traditional folk medicine typically preserves the best treatments from among those that a culture has dis- covered, the superiority of scientific medi- cine in treating complex diseases such as cancer is quite clear (Johns 278-279).14 Conclusion "Never before in human history have the linkages between the environmental and social domains been less constant. Automation, new chemicals, population growth, and a kaleidoscope of technologi- cal innovations bring change at a rate fast- er than ever before" (Clapham 7). The more rapid the changes, the more we must rely on experiment and on our intellectual resources. Technological society can build on its traditions, but can no longer be en- slaved to them. This is what Campbell and Lorenz miss when they complain about the younger generation's lack of respect for tradition. With much of Western culture's time-tested traditional wisdom obsolete, people who experiment-~wen when they experiment blindly-may be acting rea- sonably (despite appearances). I doubt that any peoples can reject all tradition and en- dure, but changing circumstances suggest a need to start taking more risks. But a more stable culture well adapted to its environment offers a meaningful al- beit defeasible warranty on behalf of its traditional practices because, whether they developed by accident, by trial and error, or by careful (if long forgotten) reasoned analysis, they have been thoroughly tested by selection processes. People may reason- ably stick to the tried and true: the human ability to pass traditions from generation to generation may seem non-logical but it is frequently capable of producing and re- taining adaptations of considerable sophis- tication. Yet, on the other hand, neither should people consider themselves wise to adhere to traditions that no longer suit the changing times. Notes 1 As suggested by, say, Warnick and Inch 135 or Kahane 60-61. Whately finds a very weak but variable presumption for existing practices and beliefs. He holds that existing beliefs and practices should be retained unless there is a reason to change them, but this does not imply to him any probability that existing institutions are right; he finds it similarly quite wrong to presume that traditions are right (Whately 112-118). 2 Toulmin makes a similar point in Humo.n Un- derstanding I :355. See also Habermas's paral- lel discussion of this issue, Communication 171 177. 3 Toulmin may have planned to give such an ac- count in the remaining volumes of his unfin- ished Humo.n Understanding, as hinted in his "Research Programme" in that work, 1:504- 508. Toulmin is careful to distinguish his views from those of more relativist philoso- phers (Human Understanding 1 :73-85) and of- ten describes his theory as a middle way between objectivism and relativism. 4 The usual central assumptions behind the neo-Darwinian theory of natural selection in- clude richness of variation that is spontaneous and persistent, abundant, small, continuous, and nondirected; together with a sorting mech- anism that prefers variations suited to the envi- ronment (Amundson 417). Contrary to his predecessors, Darwin held that evolution did not require large, discrete, goal-directed varia- tions. I do not read Darwin to argue that natu- ral selection mechanisms are helpless to operate on such variations if they happen to occur (Darwin; Sober 110). 5 Evaluations of Campbell's work include Boyd and Richerson 205; Wispe and Thompson; Richards; Ruse, Taking Darwin Seriously 58 ff. I caution that not all of Campbell's critics seem to have read him very carefully-as Wispe and Thompson note. 6 A good critical summary of the extensive liter- ature in evolutionary epistemology is Hahlweg and Hooker, "Evolutionary Epistemology." Ruse questions Toulmin and Campbell's ap- proaches because he believes that variations in culture are not random (Taking Darwin 58- 65). However, not only did Darwin himself be- lieve that acquired (and therefore non-random) traits could be inherited (Sober 109-110), but Campbell's reasoning that the processes that produce guided variations are the product of blind variation and natural selection seems telling (Campbell, "Discussion" 504). Campbell's critics seem to miss his point that much blind variation in human thought and be- havior is "vicarious," i.e. purely mental, per- ceptual, cultural, etc. Campbell's theory of blind variation does not imply the absurd posi- tion tha' actual human conduct varies blindly. The Appeal to Tradition 217 7 Alland gives an excellent review of modern Darwinian theory applied to human beings. A good account of evolutionary theory by a phi- losopher is Sober; a few of his points are mildly controversial; see also Amundson. Marvin Harris argues for a more limited use of the term "adaptive" in "Cultural Ecology." p. 52, n.l. In the present essay the term refers to whatever practices and traits increase phenotypic fitness. 8 Toulmin, "Evolutionary Development" 459; Ruse, "Taking Darwin Seriously" 125; Kottak 229; Boyd and Richerson 171; Johns 20. 9 This aceords with Harris's definition of envi- ronment, Our Kind 64; see also Hahlweg, "II" 61. Boyd and Rieherson define environment as not created by the species (34), but many of the examples throughout their book clearly treat culture as part of the individual's environment. 10 Boyd and Richerson II, 157; CampLJell, "Discussion" 504; Campbell, "Evolutionary Epistemology". 421. II Evans (245-249) makes a similar point about Laos. The government reorganized the econo- my and ended what they felt was the wasteful capitalistic practice of redistributive feasting, which had the unintended effect of worsening economic inequality. 12 Thus, note the cautions of Harris and Ross, Afterward 597. 13 Habermas, Rational Society 75. See McCarthy ch. I; Wenzel 83-94. Habermas discusses tradition and validity claims at length in Communication, 95-98, 152-167,171-172. 14 One stresses caution even for scientific medi- cine. For example, efforts of Western physi- cians to overcome the widespread cultural value of Asia and Africa against milking failed in part because, unknown to physicians of the 1950s, most of the populations of those conti- nents are physiologically unable to tolerate lactose (see Simoons 84-89). References Alland, Alexander, Jr. Evolution and Human Behavior: An Introduction to Darwinian Anthropology. 2nd ed. Garden City: Anchor- Doubleday, 1973. Amundson, Ron. "The Trials and Tribulations of Selectionist Explanations." Hahlweg and Hooker, Issues 413-432. Bettinger, Robert L. Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeo- logical and Evolutionary Theory. Interdisci- plinary Contributions to Archaeology. New York: Plenum, 1991. Boyd, Robert, and Peter J. Richerson. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. 218 William D. Harpine Boyer, Pascal. Tradition as Truth and Communi- cation: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Braun, David P. "Selection and Evolution in Non- hierarchical Organization." Upham 62-86. tsrow, James. "Notes on Community, Hegemony, and the Uses of the Past." Anthropological Quarterly 63 (1990): I -6. Campbell, Donald T. "On the Conflicts Between Biological and Social Evolution and Between Psychology and Moral Tradition." American Psychologist 30 (1975): 1103-1126. __ . "Discussion: Comment on 'The Natural Selection Model of Conceptual Evolution.'" Philosophy of Science 44 (1977): 501-507. __ . "Evolutionary Epistemology:' Schilpp 1:413-463. __ . "Reprise." American Psychologist 31 (1976): 381-384. Campbell, Donald T., and Bonnie T. Paller. "Extending Evolutionary Epistemology to 'Justifying' Scientific Beliefs (A Sociological Rapprochement with a Fallibilist Perceptual Foundationalism?)." Hahlweg and Hooker, Issues 231-257. Clapham, Jr., W. B. Human Ecosystems. New York: Macmillan, 1981. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. Every- man ed. London: JM Dent, 1928. Evans, Grant. '''Rich Peasants' and Cooperatives in Socialist Laos." Journal of Anthropological Research 44 (\988) 229-250. Farb, Peter. Humankind. Boston: Houghton, 1978. Habermas, Jurgen. Communication and the Evo- lution of Society. Trans. Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon. 1979. __ . Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science, and Politics. Trans. Jeremy Shapiro. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Hahlweg, Kai. "II: A Systems View of Evolution and Evolutionary Epistemology" in Hahlweg and Hooker. "Evolutionary Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science." Hahlweg and Hooker, Issues 45-78. Hahlweg, Kai and C.A. Hooker. "Evolutionary Epistemology and Philosophy of Science." Hahlweg and Hooker, Issues 2 I -151. __ , eds. Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology. Albany: SUNY Press, 1989. Harpine, William D. "Can Rhetoric and Dialectic Serve the Purposes of Logic?" Philosophy and Rhetoric 18 (1985): 96-112. Harris, Marvin. Cows, Pigs, Wars & Witches: The Riddles of Culture. New York: Random, 1974. __ . "The Cultural Ecology of India's Sacred Cattle." Current Anthropology 7 (1966): 51-59. __ . Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going. New York: Harper, 1989. Harris, Marvin, and Eric B. Ross. Afterword. Harris and Ross, Food and E~'olution 595-597. __ , eds. Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987. Jacobs, Struan. "Stephen Toulmin's Theory of Conceptual Evolution." Hahlweg and Hooker, Issues 510-523. Jensen, UJ., and R. Harre. The Philosophy of Evolution. New York: SI. Martin's, 1981. Johns, Timothy. With Bitter Herbs They Shall Eat It: Chemical Ecology and the Origins of Human Diet and Medicine. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990. Kahane, Howard. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life. 6th ed. Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth, 1992. Katz, Solomon H. "Fava Bean Consumption: A Case for the Co-Evolution of Genes and Cul- ture." Harris and Ross, Food and Evolution 133-159. Katz, S. H. and 1. Schall. "Fava Bean Consump- tion and Biocultural Evolution." Medical Anthropology 3 (1979): 459-476. Kottak, Conrad Phillip. "The Material Conditions of Variation in Betsileo Ceremonial Life." Ross 229-259. Leakey, Richard E. and Roger Lewin. Origins: What New Discoveries Reveal About the Emergence of Our Species and Its Possible Fu- ture. New York: Dutton, 1977. Lorenz, Konrad. Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins. Trans. Marjorie Kerr Wilson. New York: Harcourt-A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book, 1973. McCarthy, Thomas. The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978. Minturn, Robert B. From New York to Delhi, by Way of Rio de Janeiro. Australia and China. 3rd ed. New York: Appleton, 1859. Munz, Peter. Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein? London: Routledge, 1985. "Taking Darwin Even More Seriously." Halweg and Hooker, Issues 278-293. Nair, K.N. "Animal Protein Consumption and the Sacred Cow Complex in India." Harris and Ross, Food and Evolution 445-454. Poggie, Jr., John J. Gretel H. Pelto, and Pertti J. Pelto. The Evolution of Human Adaptations: Readings in Anthropology. New York: Macmillan, 1976. Richards, Robert J. "Discussion: The Natural Selection Model of Conceptual Evolution." Philosophy of Science 44 (1977): 494-501. Rindos, David. "Darwinian Selection, Symbolic Variation, and the Evolution of Culture." Current Anthropology 26 (1985): 65-77. Ross, Eric B., ed. Beyond the Myths of Culture: Essays in Cultural Materialism. New York: Academic, 1980. Ruse, Michael. The Darwinian Paradigm: Essays on its History. Philosophy, and Religious Implications. London: Routledge, 1989. __ . Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. SchiIpp, Paul Arthur, ed, The Philosophy of Karl Popper. 2 vols, Library of Living Philosophers 14, LaSalle, Ill. Open Court, 1974, Simoons, Frederick J, "The Determinants of Dair- ying and Milk Use in the Old World: Ecologi- cal, Physiological, and Cultural." Food, Ecology and Culture: Readings in the Anthro- pology of Dietary Practices. J.R,K. Robson, ed. New York: Gordon and Breach, 1980,83-91. The Appeal to Tradition 219 Sober, Elliott. The Nature of Selection: Evolu· tionary Theory in Philosophical Focus, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT-Bradford, 1984. Toulmin, Stephen E. "The Evolutionary Develop- ment of Natural Science." American Scientist 55 (1967): 456-47L __ ' "Human Adaptation," Jensen and Harre 176-195. Human Understanding. 1 vol. to date. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972. Upham. Steadman, ed. The Evolution of Political Systems: Sociopolitics in Small-Scale Sedentary Societies. School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Warnick, Barbara and Edward S. Inch. Critical Thinking and Communication: The Use of Rea- son in Argument. New York: Macmillan, 1989. Wenzel, Joseph W, "Jurgen Habermas and the Dialectical Perspective on Argumentation." Journal of the American Forensic Association 16 (1979),83-94, Werner, David. "Healing in the Sierra Madre." Poggie, Pelto, and Pelto 307-314. Whately, Richard. Elements of Rhetoric: Comprising an Analysis of the Laws of Moral Evidence and of Persuasion, with Rules for Argumentative Composition and Elocution. Ed, Douglas Ehninger. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1963 (orig. 1828), Wispe, Lauren G, and James N. Thompson, Jr. "The War Between the Words: Biological Ver- sus Social Evolution and Some Related Issues." American Psychologist 31 (1976): 341-347. Wolf, Eric R. Peasants. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1966. WILLIAM D. HARPINE SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION UNIVERSITY OF AKRON AKRON, OH 44325-1003 o