S T I L L B E A T I N G

In the narrowest scope, the execution of Troy Davis demonstrates the paradox of the death penalty appeals protocol where, often, defendants wait years – or even decades – for sluggish movement until the courts suddenly act with striking speed and response as the death mechanisms are readied and prepared. Indeed, Davis’ execution made its way before the Supreme Court twice just minutes before execution. Each time they flirted with review, indicating perhaps something was askew, before handing it back to the state.

Similarly, the life of Troy Davis – nearly half of it spent behind bars – reminds onlookers of the legal system that once this (quite slow) train has left the station few moral or political forces possess the power to derail the state’s initial ruling. Believably, though perhaps to the disappointment of Twitter users, not even trending #IAMTROYDAVIS can override the power of the clemency board. Certainly, there are a handful of cases where – if deemed admissible – exculpatory evidence saves the day. For blacks, this is almost exclusively DNA, with whites and then minorities benefiting at lower but still mentionable rates. In comparison, other forms of reprieve – of less empirical justification like clemency – will presumably display results inversely for blacks and whites. While race is to remain for the indefinite future as the perpetual what-if, we must suppose there are many in the court system that enjoy this ambiguity, whether consciously or otherwise.

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Two hundred years after Charles Darwin’s birth – and nearly 150 since the arrival of his magnum opus, On The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection – and it is difficult to sketch how the figure might respond to the modern zeitgeist.  In the United States the paradoxes are bewildering, and even more so when the fissures exist not just within the distant enclaves of Arkansas and Oklahoma, but on the ground between the most preeminent philosophers. At least two of them.

Rutgers University sponsored a debate between these philosophers, sparing on the intricacies of natural selection – and while a far cry from the disputes over Intelligent Design, conceivably no less consequential. Though I originally intended to write on some of the important implications outside the immediate contextual framework of Darwinian thought, I’ve opted to dedicate a sizable entry to the matters themselves.  However, I will likely return to this issue of contextualizing the historical moment and what it means in the future.

Out of the left corner was Rutgers’ Jerry Fodor; Fodor is fairly universally regarded as the foremost philosopher of mind, as well as leading authority in philosophy of language and cognitive science.  Counterposed to Fodor was Philip Kitcher, a philosopher of mathematics and science (among other disciplines) associated with Columbia University. Fodor pronounced his position in a decidedly philosophical slant, certainly as compared to what was to come from Kitcher. Darwin’s natural selection (N.S.) fails to exist as a scientific theory because it rests upon post-hoc analysis and can only produce results in two forms: either empty conclusions, or on the other hand, tautologies.  Though Fodor failed to succinctly clarify this particular drumbeat of his regarding tautologies, the greater corpus of his argument emerged throughout his presentation and associated rebuttal to Kitcher. It came as follows: Darwin’s N.S. depends upon the assumption there is a methodology or mechanism for the transmission of the pool of heritable traits, or phenotypes (traditionally, phenotype refers to the observable heritable traits, perhaps beside the greater point). Continue reading »