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Are the four Baconian idols still alive in demography?. Daniel Courgeau, Ined Jakub Bijak, University of Southampton Robert Franck, Université Catholique de Louvain Eric Silverman, University of Southampton.
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Are the four Baconian idols still alive in demography? Daniel Courgeau, Ined Jakub Bijak, University of Southampton Robert Franck, Université Catholique de Louvain Eric Silverman, University of Southampton
Francis Bacon elaborated his inductive method in 1620. It consists of the deduction of principles from the study of their consequences, and was followed by the pioneers of the modern sciences: Galileo, Descartes, Newton, etc. • He contrasted his new approach to the standard one at his time, characterized by four Idols: Idols of the Tribe, the Cave, the Market Place and of the Theatre. • We will examine each of them and try to see if they are still alive in demography.
1. Idols of the tribe (Idola Tribus) • To define them, Bacon proposed that it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things: • We give here the example of behaviour genetics. • It is based on assumptions made a long time ago by Fisher (1918): there exist polygenes, that • (i) act positively, (ii) segregate independently and (iii) whose number may be considered as infinite; • (iv) the environment is independent of genes and random, and (v) the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. • From the discovery of the molecular DNA structure in 1953 to sequencing of the human genome in 2002, these axioms were shown to have no scientific content
However, behaviour genetics began to be used to study human behavioural traits in 1970, with the concept of heritability drawn from Fisher’s axioms. It had produced a huge amount of results in demography and other social sciences. • Even the entrance into the genomic era did not reduce their audience. • Genome-wide associations studies, designed to show the links existing between DNA and human traits and behaviour, explain only a very small proportion of heritability. • Behavioural genetics supposes the existence of more order and regularity that it finds: the results obtained are all fallacious. • A real scientific approach may only be found while using results from molecular and genomic sciences.
2. Idols of the Cave (Idola Specus) • To define them, Bacon said that the individual may construct an entire system, with reference to a few observations and ideas, and an appetite for novelty . • Such an attitude is found nowadays in the post-modern theory, which tries to reject any real scientific approach, putting on an equal foot art, science and religion. • This approach inspired the notorious Sokal hoax, an article (1996) collecting a number of the silliest quotations from postmodernist authors, about mathematics and physics. • Its extension in demography came latter, as in van de Kaa’s paper on postmodern fertility preferences (2001)
Van de Kaa attempts a more precise conceptualization for the concept of postmodernism as a world view. • But finally he finds that such an analysis did not lead to very clear results. • In her comments to Van de Kaa’s paper, Bacharach (2001) wonders whether the need of a precise concept for postmodernism is compatible with the essence of postmodern ideas and thoughts. • A more complete presentation of Demography in the age of the postmodern was published a little later (2003) by Riley and McCarty. • It finally suggest that postmodern perspectives have already entered the field of demography, even if they are not named as such. But these ideas did not give rise to an important postmodern movement in it.
3. Idols of the Market Place (Idola fori) • For Bacon, these idols are formed by the Intercourse and association of men with each other. • We can include in them political scientific debates which nowadays become more and more important. • The example we will treat here is eugenics, now referred to as hereditarianism. • It was introduced by Galton at the end of the XIXthcentury as a science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race . • These ideas were followed up in a great number of countries during the first half of the XXth century, and after World War II they were replaced by hereditarism
How these principles were applied in a great number of so-called demographic studies? • Correlation between fertility and social status focused public attention upon the highly emotional question of “race quality”. • Links between IUSSIP and eugenics were important around its foundation (1928) with presidents Pearl and Gini, and with conferences held in Rome and Berlin. • During the postwar era, former eugenicists promoted hereditarianism, but their goals remain the same. • Osborn & the Population Council, Sanger & the IPPF, Salas & the UNFPA promoted population control. • Also research on the IQ used heritability in order to save money allocated to some programmes. • Such Idol is always deeply anchored in political thought and it is very important to reject it.
4. Idols of the theater (Idola Theatri) • The last kind of Bacon’s idols has immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophies and also from wrong laws of demonstration. • If in Bacon’s time they corresponded to traditional hermeneutics, more recently a new form appeared corresponding to modernhermeneutics. • Its impact upon social sciences occurred during the last third of the XXth century: e.g. Skinner finds no universal truths in natural and social sciences. • However, as they do not recognize any value to the usual methods of social sciences,they are unable to provide any guidance for their actual practice.
As a follower of Skinner, Charbit in his book on population thought (2010), was unable to see the links between different authors and later debates, and finally gives only slight alterations of what was already known • Similarly, in their charge against a so-called French school, Petit and Charbit (2013) propose a more comprehensive approach to demography, letting aside all its explanative power. • They seem also unable to see that the methods they criticize, saying that demography became withdrawn and isolated, allowed in fact to analyze clinical trials and to save many human lives. • It seems to us that we have to resist to the temptation to spread ourselves too thinly, as they propose. We must strive, on the contrary, to focus our research on the specific object of demography.
Discussion and conclusion • The greatest successes of demography, and its most prominent areas of practical application for the public good, involve statistical analysis and population forecasting. • So that, in our view, the main challenge is to resist the four idols, and to keep sight of the main source of “paradigmatic success” of demography, which is its empirical, scientific character. • Nevertheless, it does not necessarily imply that population sciences should become a complacent ivory tower or that we should not allow additional insights, influences and inspirations, insofar these are constantly submitted to the rigours of the inductive method
However, we argue that demography is not yet a fully formed science but a science in the making. The overarching question, at least for the next fifty years of demography, is under which circumstancesadditional insights, influences and inspirations can enrich the scientific study of human populations. Thank you very much for your attention! The usual disclaimer applies: The views presented in this paper are exclusively those of the authors and should not be attributed to any institution, with which the authors are or were affiliated.
