Speaking of chance, Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins have an interesting
little article called "Chance and Necessity" in the new issue of Capitalism
Nature Socialism (vol 8, no. 1, issue #29). "For the most part," they
write, "randomness and causation, chance and necessity, are not mutually
exclusive opposites but interpenetrate." Events that may have entirely
rational causes may look random when they intersect or confront determined
events from another system: the "chance" collision of two cars on a
deserted highway; FDR's death had explicable biological causes, but looked
accidental on the level of world politics; mutations can be explained on
the cellular level, but look "random" when seen from the standpoint of
natural selection; randomness is constrained, e.g. fruitflies can't mutate
into gorillas; events that seem random on the individual level will often
behave in accordance with statistical laws on the aggregate level [the law
of large numbers]; etc.
Doug
little article called "Chance and Necessity" in the new issue of Capitalism
Nature Socialism (vol 8, no. 1, issue #29). "For the most part," they
write, "randomness and causation, chance and necessity, are not mutually
exclusive opposites but interpenetrate." Events that may have entirely
rational causes may look random when they intersect or confront determined
events from another system: the "chance" collision of two cars on a
deserted highway; FDR's death had explicable biological causes, but looked
accidental on the level of world politics; mutations can be explained on
the cellular level, but look "random" when seen from the standpoint of
natural selection; randomness is constrained, e.g. fruitflies can't mutate
into gorillas; events that seem random on the individual level will often
behave in accordance with statistical laws on the aggregate level [the law
of large numbers]; etc.
Doug