As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently had the opportunity to attend some of the sessions of the “Future Directions in Genetic Studies” workshop at Washington University in St. Louis. One of the talks was by Paul Griffiths, a Philosophy professor from Sydney, Australia, who discussed “The Distinction between Innate and Acquired Characteristics.”
Griffiths’ talk focused on the troubled use of the word “innate.” Also troubled are various synonyms of “innate,” including “instinctual,” and “human nature.” These terms all seem to engender confusion more than anything else, because there is a wide variety of potential meanings to these terms. Can’t we all agree on what it means to be “innate,” so that we can understand each other when we use that word? As you see from this post, Griffiths is not optimistic.
Griffiths spent the first part of his lecture unpacking quite a bit of history of the biology of behavior. Many prominent scientists weighed on the use of the term “innate” during the 20th century. They include a staunch critic of behaviorism, Zing yang Kuo, “a terrific writer,” whose 1920 article, entitled “How are our Instincts acquired?” Griffiths highly recommended (I can’t find that article, but here is another of Kuo’s articles). Griffiths also mentioned the “instinct theorists,” including William McDougall (Griffiths commented that many of these theorists were actually dualists). Another of the instinct theorists was Niko Tinbergen, who argued that there is something about animal instincts that cannot be reduced.
Konrad Lorenz was influential in the 1950s, promoting the idea that there could be instincts without vitalism. Lorentz argued that we needed a much more complicated sketch of neural mechanisms, essentially arguing that small instincts were “assembled by the environment.” In short, Lorentz kicked vitalism out of the mix. Griffiths then described the work of Daniel Lehrman, who “wrote that other great paper of 1953,” a paper entitled “A critique of Konrad Lorenz’ Theory of Instinctive Behavior.” As Griffiths put it, “Here was an animal lover who is also an anti-nativist.” He then descibed C.H. Waddington’s concept of “canalization.” A bit vague on my understanding, I found this explanation of Waddington’s approach following the talk:
the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the development’s initial state and during the course of development.
In view of these many approaches, what scientists have meant when they have claimed that traits are “innate” has never been something easily discerned. In fact, the term “innate” remains a highly confusing concept.
Griffith’s own view is that it is “unscientific” to say that behavior is “innate,” unless the claim is unpacked neurologically. In short, it is not an explanation to say that something is “innate.” In order to explain something, one must address how that trait came to be. This idea was summed up in the writings of P.P.G. Bateson, who was also concerned about the conceptual swamp that the word “innate” had come to represent. Referring to the use of the word “innate,” Bateson wrote “Say what you mean, even if it takes longer, rather than use a word that carries so many different connotations.”
What do people currently mean when they claim that something that is “innate?” It’s still not clear.
Some people mean that the trait is typical of the species. In 1975, Stephen Stich argued that an “innate” trait is a trait that a person will manifest in the normal course of human development. This approach doesn’t really work, because there are many examples of traits that are common that nonetheless depend upon the environment.
Another approach is based upon what might be termed “adaptiveness.” Something that is “innate” is something that doesn’t closely track the environment through natural selection. As Khalidi wrote in 2007, “innate” traits are those that contain more information than the environment.
A third common approach is an analysis based upon “fixity.” Those traits that are “innate” are environmentally canalized; they are insensitive to the particular state of the environment. For instance, one can find lots of genetic variation in a population of sparrows, but they mostly turn out looking similar. This same idea can be found in the writings of Andrew Ariew (1996).
Griffiths concludes that “innate” is an “expression of an implicit folk-biological theory of animal nature.” According to this folk-biological theory, some traits of living things are expressions of an inner nature, whereas others are imposed by the environment.
Griffiths was even motivated to conduct a formal survey to determine the cognitive components of the term “innate,” as it is commonly used today. He focused on “fixity” (the trait is hard to change and development is insensitive to environmental changes), “typicality” (part of what it is to be an organism of that kind-every individual that is not malformed has it); and “teleology” (the trait is “how the organism is meant to develop”). He found that fixity and typicality are big contributors to the current meaning of “innate,” while teleology is a minor component.
Griffiths concluded that the use of the word “innate” is “based on our folk biological intuitions.” He cautioned, though, that in conducting the survey, he was doing “linguistics, not philosophy. At the close of his talk, Griffiths asked whether it was defensible to continue to use the word “innate.” Is there real scientific “work was quote being done by the term “innate.” His answer? “Not really.”
He argued that the use of the word “innate” often amounts to a waste of time. Many people continue to use the word, however, because “there’s a gut feeling that the word carries meaning.” Yet there’s “no single underlying essence.” There is no single overall meaning. It’s a “hodgepodge term.” It’s akin to the use of the word “race,” in that it is vague and invites unnecessary confusion.
I'm somewhat confused. Is this a shifting of the "nature vs. nurture" conundrum to a linguistic platform?
Proj: I don't consider is a shifting. Rather, I think that it is a plea to have such debates using words that have more precise and scientifically verifiable meanings.
I think I need a layman version of your post…
When something is "innate" it does not mean that you were born with it and that it is in your genes?
Proj: The main problem is that phenotype is the product of an interaction between genes and environment. Therefore, to the extent that you have a (phenotypic) trait X, there are always two things that combine, heredity and environment.
When we say that someone has an innate ability to do X, we are trying, at a gut level, to say that that ability is inborn and genetic. For instance, we sometimes say that an athlete has an "innate athletic ability." But what, exactly, does that mean, especially given that a twin of that person who abuses his body (or simply doesn't work out 6 hours every day) is not athletic and is never considered athletic, much less innately athletic.
I agree with Paul Griffiths that use of the term "innate" gives rise to more confusion and wasteful dispute than it is worth. I've seen it in more than a few articles, seminars and classes. The take-home point of Griffith's lecture is that we should avoid use of the word "innate" and, instead, try to take the time to more carefully say what we are really trying to say.
I had a biopsych professor who explained it well: rather than thinking of nature and nurture as two mutually exclusive components, think of the two as an instrument and the musician who plays it. The music- the interplaying product of both potential and experience- is you. A different musician can express the same instrument in a very different way, as a unique environment has its own special impact on the expression of genes. The two factors work together, not in opposition or on askew paths.
I don't think it would be wrong to claim that the other twin also has the same "innate athletic ability". If he stopped living his awfully despiccable live and train a bit more he'd also be a great athlete. Some people run to the gymn for months and hardly see any results and others are couch potatoes and are still fit.
I couldn't agree more with this post. On a slightly different note, one of my high school teachers had a habit of always throwing the word "innate" out there to "pump up" the vocabulary. A couple years later my classmates are sayings things like, "Wow, this city is innately amazing!"
It bothers me how people try to use a vague, ambiguous, sophisticated-sounding word in the wrong context these days. If you don't fully understand the meaning of a word, and no one else has completely grasped the concept of a word, please use it with caution.
A couple of comments to your interesting post. First, Waddington never did have a theory of innateness. He did not apply the concept of canalization to the nature/nurture debate. The gloss you attributed to Waddington comes from my own work on this.
Griffiths approach is to see what the folk think. He's taking surveys and finding a coherent concept. He concludes there are none.
My approach is to look at the central debates concerning innateness and look to see what sort of concepts are in use. I think this is a problem for Griffiths: he claims that innateness is a folk-notion, but it doesn't have to be. The concept is also grounded in research, including cognitive science and biololgy
It is important for a philosophical account of innateness to be critical of inconsistencies in how the terms are used. For instance, for many scientists (and laypeople) think that "innate" refers to a trait that develops regardless of environment. Others think that innateness refers to something produced by natural selection. But, these ideas are orthogonal to each other–natural selection produces traits that are both developmentally sensitive and insensitive to environment cues.
I disagree that my canalization account is an example of "fixity". Rather, it refers to developmental invariance–just compare the account (you mistakenly attribute to Waddington) to environmental canalization.
Finally, I think the significant point about the canalization account is not whether it is a matter of fixity or adaptiveness, but that innateness is a relational concept. Nothing is innate, simpliciter; it is incoherent to think, say, genes alone produce traits. Rather, innateness is a matter of degree, concerning the degree to which the environment doesn't make a difference to a developmental outcome.
Thanks for the post and the opportunity to reply (even if unsolicited)!
Cheers,
Andre Ariew