 Good afternoon. I'm Mark Siegler and I'm just delighted to welcome you to the McLean Center's 40th annual lecture series. This is one that Dr. Mindy Schwartz and I work together to organize. And the title is Medical History and Ethics, and we're so excited and delighted with our speaker today, Dr. Robert Bob Richards. I just want to say a quick word that next week, we'll have the last talk of the fall quarter, which will be given by Lydia Dugdale from Columbia University in New York and the lost out of dying. And then we'll be off for two weeks. And we'll resume at the beginning of January on January five with a speaker who you may not want to know from at the moment, but it's me in January five. But let me tell you about today's speaker, who is fantastic. Robert Bob Richards PhD is the Morris Fishbine Distinguished Service Professor in the history of science and professor in the departments of philosophy, history psychology, and in the committee on conceptual and historical studies of science. He is also the director of the Morris Fishbine Center for the history of science and medicine. Bob received his degrees from the University of Chicago back in the 1970s. He does research in history and philosophy of psychology and biology. And this includes a particular interest in evolutionary theory, bio psychology, ethology and socio biology. He's written very many books. I'll just mention a few two books on the history and philosophy of evolutionary theory in Britain and America, and also a book that describes and analyzes the impact of the German romantic movement on philosophy and science in the age of professor Richards teaching involves many of the aforementioned subjects, as well as more general courses on the history and philosophy of science in the ancient period philosophy of history and German intellectual history. Bob has won many, many awards and prizes that include the Gordon Lang Award, the Quantrell Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching here at the university. The Pfizer Award, the George Sartin Medal from the history of science society, the Lang Prize several times from the University of Chicago Press. And also, he won the Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, as well as receiving the Sartin Medal for lifetime achievements from the history of science society. I could go on and on, but I'm looking forward. Don't let me interrupt you, Mark, just go on and on. I'm looking forward to hearing Bob's talk today. A talk that is jointly entitled the metaphysics and epistemology of history, or the past is not what you think it is. The version of that talk is the epistemology and metaphysics of historiography, my gosh. But I'm leaving to Bob to tell us which of those titles will be standing. Bob Richards, please, it's all yours. Thanks, Mark. Well, I'm honored to participate in this lecture series and want to thank both Mark Siegler and Mindy Schwartz for the invitation to address you, perhaps on an unexpected subject, namely, not medicine, not even history of medicine, but on history as a discipline. Physicians since the time of Hippocrates have written patient histories. So I hope what I have to say about history more generally will be relevant to your concerns. As Mark suggested, I'm a historian of biology, particularly evolutionary biology, but I want to reflect with you more generally about the nature of history. I was jarred from my dogmatic slumbers about history a few years ago by reading a passage from a book by a colleague at Stanford University, Paula Finland. Her book possessing nature is quite a good book on the history of natural history museums in early modern Italy. It opens with a vignette about Ulysses Aldirvande, who established a natural history museum in Bologna, Italy. I'll return to Finland and her account of Aldirvande in a moment. For the historian to give shape to past facts and provide an explanation for those facts. A host of assumptions has to be made. And for the reflective historian those assumptions need to be justified. First, a very simple issue. What is meant by the past past is quite a funny thing. After all, the historians principle subject doesn't exist. We may have present documents, but past events don't any longer exist. We can only try to reconstruct the past in our descriptions. But will it be the past as understood by the actors who resided in the past. It should be at least that but which actors, since all individuals will not have perceived events in the same way, where there are millions of past but no unified past. And should we we rely only on the actors categories in our explanations of past events by focusing exclusively on the way actors of the past understood their world. The historian I believe will be precluded from actually understanding their world. Let me give you an example. In her book, ascribed Ulyssae Aldervandi's rise to fame as a naturalist to his account of a dragon that had been seen on the outskirts of Bologna in 1572. Here's the opening passage to her book. On May 13 1572 the very day that you go bond company had been chosen to had chosen to return to his hometown to be invested as Pope Gregory the 13th. A fearsome dragon appeared in the countryside near Bologna. A moment of terrible times to come. Soon word of its presence spread and a party was sent out to overtake it. The captured portent was duly carried inside the walls of the city for its citizens to inspect. Aldervandi even had a portrait of the fearsome dragon done by one of his artists. In her fine book Finland nowhere says. And oh by the way, you know, dragons don't really exist. He really details Aldervandi's work to establish his museum using the description of the dragon to establish his credentials. But wouldn't we like to know what he really saw, because whatever he saw it wasn't a dragon. At least he didn't see that thing he illustrated in his posthumous book, Serpentum at draconum on serpents and dragons. Shouldn't the account of the historian include things and events the actress themselves could not be aware of. Consider if you will the black death, the pestilence that the best historians of the period thought to be due to a miasma, but was really of course due to a bacillus you're seeing a pestis carried by fleas which were transported by rats. After all, don't we assume that fleas and the plague bacillus also existed in the past, and were explanatory factors in the actions of individuals though those individuals are quite unaware of the real causes of the disease. The block the great French historian observed were nevertheless successful in knowing far more of the past than the past itself thought good to tell us. Consider another dragon that Aldervandi depicts an Ethiopian dragon. During the period that Aldervandi was establishing his natural history museum merchant ships were visiting distant lands and bringing back specimens from all over from the Americas from the Far East and Africa. In fact, the Ethiopian dragon was really their main remains of a large fox bat from India, which can weigh up to 40 pounds. So I think we have to recognize the past exists in our descriptions, but descriptions while including the beliefs of actors should also include those events, for which we had good evidence but yet lie beyond the can of the actors. Fox bats from India, for example. The second assumption the historian must make has to do with a kind of forces we think that can explain events. Are they causes or something else. One of my former colleagues at the university the great historian of anthropology charge stockings said he never use the word cause when describing events. So word though that comes frequently to my lips. And if there are causes to explain events what is their character. So they need, at least to be the sort that David Hume would have admitted namely their antecedent events that may be linked to outcomes by our best scientific theories and historical experience. Such causes will generally be of two kinds physical causes like the plague bacillus, or perhaps something like the remains of a large fox bat. Another kind of cause will be in the realm of cognition in the minds of the actors their beliefs assumptions psychological dispositions, the kinds of causes that lead to behavior of a certain sort. The astute historian will make the narrative of those antecedent causes as tight as possible. As tight as he or she possibly can thus robbing the actor I believe of any free will in the situation. The historian may depict the actors as perceiving an open future. But the historian by his or her efforts of specifying antecedent causes closes off that future. From the historian's point of view, the explanatory effort will be deficient to the extent that in the narrative. The actor could have done otherwise. Let me went mention an even more meta meta consideration concerning explanatory factors. Does the historian have to appeal not only to the readers intellect, but also to the readers emotions. Another two historians in the romantic period, Frederick von Schiller, the great poet historian and friend of the dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, also a friend of Goethe's and the intellectual architect of the University of Berlin. Both thought that the good historian would deliver descriptions that gave the readers something of the feeling of the emotional charge behind the probe proposed causes of events. This is an aspect of historical explanation often neglected in intellectual history, but a crucial one for ramping up the explanatory narrative to another level. If there were an emotional component to the acceptance or rejection of a set of ideas by a past scientist mustn't the historian contrive to make the reader feel a little bit of the same kind of emotion through the dexterity of his or her descriptions. Here in I think lies the art of the historian. A third assumption the historian must make seemingly I think paradoxical is that the past is changeable and unstable. This follows of the past only exist in the historians constructions. The historian works with the concept of the past as all individuals do a concept that implies the fact the past is fixed. Whether this concept is comparable to a Kantian category or the result of experience I'm not sure. The concept of the past as fixed provides a framework, but one with changeable content. That just means that when a new construction of past events is established with better evidence. This becomes the new fixed past. This means the past is like silly putty that can take any shape of persuasive historian can mold it into must they're not lie beneath the constructions of foundation of reliable fact. Well I believe there must, but the foundation is assuredly is assured by the application of our best contemporary scientific understanding and historical experience. So one of these activities will have the scientific check of modern biological understanding which includes the existence of dragons, but certainly allows for the existence of fox bats. Sometimes our historical depiction will be laced with biographical biographical accounts of the his, the individuals involved. This is especially true in intellectual history or my sub branch of intellectual history the history of science. Consider a scientist whom I know something about Charles Darwin. I'll use Darwin is in as an example to illustrate a few other principles of historical analysis. Understanding Darwin's accomplishment immediately presents to the historian, several significant problems. First Darwin is almost a contemporary contemporary figure, or at least his shadow is. The analogist and cultural critics refer indifferently to evolutionary theory and to Darwinian theories so identified as the creator for the dominant theory and biology and in cultural discourse. This means this means it's quite easy to read back into Darwin's accomplishment are contemporary understanding of evolutionary theory to make Darwin into a neo Darwinian. So let's take a look at eight issues in assessing Darwin's accomplishment first, whether he advanced a mechanist view of nature, or an organist view. And the second whether he believed nature was evolutionarily progressive or not. Both issues are fundamental to understanding an historical account of Darwin's achievement. The contemporary conceptions of evolution. I think it's pretty clear evolutionary theory is both mechanistic in its portrayal of nature, and non progressivist nature to the course of millennia did not have us in mind was not striving to produce human beings. Now to make these issues a bit more vivid. I hope you'll forgive me if I refer to a book that has recently appeared called debating Darwin, which I co authored with Michael ruse, a prominent philosopher of science. We each wrote about 100 pages laying out our understanding of Darwin's accomplishment, and then commented on the others interpretation in about 30 vitriolic pages. And then together we wrote a narrative bringing the story up to the present day discussing such issues as the status of human consciousness and modern theory, and that of religion. Bruce and I had exactly the same wealth of material by which to interpret Darwin's achievement, but we come to rent we came to radically different understandings. I don't think Bruce would object to my characterization of our dispute for Bruce. Darwin is the extreme mechanism turning nature into a steam engine, which chugs along without purpose or goal, or change the metaphor. Nature is a robot that takes a random walk. For me, Darwin is an organist and holist who place man as the goal of nature, nature progressively advanced toward that goal, at least in Darwin's conception. Like many social constructionists began by examining Darwin's external socio political environment for Bruce the controlling environment of the Industrial Revolution in England. And then Bruce moves more internally to determine how the environment made an impact on Darwin's mental life, presumably transforming the young man into a mechanism. I rather began with that mental interior as revealed by letters diaries entries and manuscripts, and then look toward the external environment to determine what captured Darwin's interest. My assumption is that the external environment was quite variegated and differed for different individuals that those individuals had to invest particular features of the external environment with meaning. The external environment did not simply shape the ideas of the scientist as a sculptor might chisel a piece of granite into a form. That I think is the wrong metaphor. Bruce's Darwin comes out a mechanist who displaced man from a central position in nature, and turned human morality into a puppet show of software grandestment, which is generally the neo Darwinian view and I think the more popular view of Darwin's achievement. The human man is the purpose of nature and restrict and reconstructed that nature with a moral spine, yielding human beings as authentically moral creatures quite different perspectives I think you'll probably agree, each dependent on how to make sense out of a scientist personal life. I'm not going to show the supporting text and Darwin's work, but those of you who do history of medicine to produce diagnoses from a set of factual symptoms. Recognize there's no prescription for choosing the right text to illustrate a general thesis are focusing on the right symptoms to confirm a diagnosis. Such selections require the integrity integrity and craft of the historian, or the physician. Over the good diagnostician though he or she will listen carefully to patients historical accounts of their symptoms. The good diagnostician will ask probing questions to undercover symptoms, ignored by the patient or causes that did not enter into the overt historical account. Diagnosis is an art and even computer diagnostic systems usually have been built on a template furnished by a master diagnostician. Masters furnishes the columns written by Dr Lisa Lisa Sanders every Sunday in the New York Times magazine. The lessons of the different diagnoses of Darwin's theory by roots and me is that we both try to guard against the easy imposition of contemporary ideas. Ruth affirms one set of ideas, I another, but each set of ideas is tied to the letters diaries and manuscripts. Well, maybe one of us does a slightly better job than the other and selecting the right data. But our work might be compared with that of the great biologist turned historian of biology, Ernst Meyer, Meyer composed a history of biology. His book was entitled the growth of biological thought. It's a volume of almost 1000 pages, two thirds of which are devoted to evolutionary theory. It came to Herbert Spencer that other founder of evolutionary science in the 19th century, a figure that Bruce and I think extraordinarily important in the formation of evolutionary ideas. Meyer devoted but three paragraphs to the man because in Meyer's words, Spencer's positive contributions were nil. And there being the quintessential neo Darwinian, I think imposing his own ideas on his hero Charles Darwin. If Meyer had examined more carefully the biographies of those individuals whose contributions he believed to be significant, he would have found those individuals worked out their theories in relation to Spencer, an historical figure who simply can't be convinced without stored without distorting the history of 19th century biology and a good deal of the history of social science in the early 20th century. Darwin's example brings to the fore the another issue that the devil's many historians. Those who have tried to account for the accomplishments of any major figure of the past. The problem might be epitomized by two questions. Darwin's theory. And where does it exist. We speak blightfully of Darwin's theory as if it were an abstract entity of determinant meeting. If you examine Darwin's development of those ideas that came to form the first edition of the origin of species. That is his conceptual work from just after return from the Beagle voyage in 1836 to the publication of the first edition some 20 years later in 1859. It was changing over time. A garden in which some plants blossomed and produce fruit and new seeds while others failed to thrive and died away. Moreover, if you consider the alterations wrought in the subsequent five editions of the origin. You would further track changes, since the sixth edition is about 50% altered from the first. Darwin's theory actually to be a historical entity which right resides in the manuscripts, letters and publications over his lifetime. In the mature state of Darwin's theory say in the sixth edition, you can detect the confusions of its youth and the receding hairline of its final form. But each period is different and it would be a mistake to assume the phrase Darwin's theory has the univocal meaning. With a scrutinizing view of the life of Charles Darwin, you would not mistake his theory for an unchanging abstract entity. Now would you be inclined to claim say with Dan Dennett, the Darwin replaced divine intelligence, and this is quoting Dennett with a completely stupid algorithmic process natural selection. A close reconstruction of Darwin's accomplishment clearly shows that I think the divine intelligence hovered over the theories coming of age in the first edition. Darwin had Dennis formulation been put to Darwin himself he might have thought an algorithmic process was a new method of plant hybridization. The scrutinizing view of the life becomes an anchor that holds one steadily in the 19th century where Darwin resides and protect protects against what might be called the great books fallacy, or alternatively the well wrought earn fallacy. I make a believing that one can fully grasp and author's intentions by regarding his or her great book as a well wrought firm, something complete in itself, with its intentions fully manifest. There's a sense in which Darwin began the process which continues to the present day of the disenchantment of nature, but the theory dwelling in the first edition still harbored I believe the divine mind. A little bit problematic, some of this audience will recognize I think a one Charles Darwin wrote a book in 1859, read by many people as an atheistic track. During the same year, another author by the same name wrote a book with the same title with the intention of showing how God's laws operated in nature, and who professed to a friend. I had no attend intention of writing atheistically. The verdicts I've already mentioned Michael Rousse or Dan Bennett only account for one of these books. The astute intellectual historian will give a stereophonic rendering of both books, not forgetting the one excavated from the intentional life of the great naturalist, but certainly also mentioning the book that contemporary biologists refer to in the first paragraphs of their textbooks on evolutionary The great historian Thomas Bevington Macaulay contended that history was both an art and a science. He wrote the perfect historian is he, and it's always a he in the 19th century, in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters which is not authenticated by sufficient sufficient testimony. He gives judicious selection rejection and arrangement. He gives truth to those attributions with which have been usurped by fiction. Men will not merely be described but will be made intimately known to us. The change in manners will be indicated not merely by a few general phrases or extracts from statistical documents, but by appropriate images present to it in every line in other words. The artful historian will arrange his or her history to engage the readers emotions to make the reader feel the height of exhilaration, or the depth of sorrow suffered by the actors in the history. This provides an understanding on a different level than the ethereal plane of reason. Perhaps it requires of the historian to engage in a bit of method acting. That is conjuring up from one's personal depths and experience something like that of the historical actor. In order to render their actors actions explicable. In a small way not so much to relive the life of the individual of the past to live one's own life as it might have been lived, which ultimately means that good history like a good novel is often autobiographical. Thank you very much. Now I'm ready for withering questions. Mindy I think you're muted. Okay just what I need. Okay let me just make you big here. Do you ever have a feeling like you're like Dr. Demento? I mean it's crazy. Okay so let me go here. Okey dokey. Let me get rid of my, and my camera's gone? I mean like what is going on? Hold on a sec. Is that better? Are we back? Yes. Are we going to open it up for questions or should I start? Well it's your in command. Okay. I thought that, see I think this is really interesting and provocative because I think that I love the idea that it's a dynamic interaction. And in some ways what you said about history as being both an art and a science really resonated with me because I thought about the analogies to clinical medicine. So you know this raises a bigger issue like you say is, is there one past? You know and how do we think about this stuff? I also think on a practical level I think there can be a case made for the benefits of history just in terms of helping people understand kind of human nature over time. You know what I mean? I think the powerful thing is that the circumstances change but people don't and people are multi-dimensional, you know. I don't know and I love this stuff about Darwin because I think it's really interesting. I didn't know that Darwin evolved as much as he did. That's fascinating. Well Darwin was an individual who kept generating ideas and in the origin of species, the multiple editions of the origin, some six editions. He had, he thought he had to account for the objections that would arise from his theory. And so each of the editions after the first tries to answer some of the objections that have been posed to him. Interestingly Darwin leaves human beings out of the origin of species. He refers only at the very end saying light will be thrown on man from his theory. He discussed human beings at all. He took a strategic tact. Namely, he thought if he talked about human evolution, that would occupy people's attention and he would not get a fair hearing for his theory. So he left human beings out of the origin of species. And he asked the first reviews only focused on what the implications of his theory were for human beings. And his theory was often attacked because of that. So in 1872 he published the descent of man and selection in relation to sex, which gave an account of human evolution, and the objections piled up, multiply after that as well. He was a man who kept changing his mind and he kept trying to answer his critics through the several editions of the origin. See, but that's a good lesson for modern times is this constant, you know, change in that. Even good ideas get refined and changed over time. I think in some ways that's heartening for me, you know, just because I feel like we live in a time of incredible change and seeing other people's work in a more dynamic way, I think is very helpful. Well, I think Darwin provides a good model of that we should all is trying to make our intellectual activities comparable to that of Darwin. Okay, but let's get to I think you will succeed in that though. One question speaking of that is, talk about the role of heroes, you know, I mean, how do we look, how do we look at history as clinicians and not look with admiration to people who have been. I don't know if I think we were living in an era where there's so many anti heroes in some ways, it'd be nice to find some people who you admire in history, you know what I mean. But in the history discipline itself, hero worship is on the outs. The great man theory of history is presumably an indication of naive Tay on the part of the historian. Intellectual history to is doesn't have much purchase in history today. I find that astounding but because if you offer courses to undergraduates are graduate students and a history department. The intellectual history courses are oversubscribed in the social history courses. Well, they get a modest review, but intellectual history is always of interest to students and to faculty as well I think. But for whatever reason, the history departments across the country and the world have downplayed intellectual history and certainly do not think of heroes in the history in their intellectual history. Just to give you an example. James C chord, a great historian who wrote a book on Robert Chambers, a man little known to anyone outside of a small circle of devotees produced an evolutionary theory prior to Darwin it was published in 1844. And see courts book on chambers. He declares that more people were interested in the general population were interested in his view of evolution and who the author was because it was published anonymously. And he decries the notion that Darwin should reap all the interest because he's a genius. C chord thinks that that category of genius has seen its day. But if you read Darwin and you reach chambers there's no doubt that Darwin was much more of an interesting intellectual than Robert Chambers could ever aspire to be. And it's just more fun and more interesting to read Darwin's work because he's not a one trick pony or two trick pony he's pony that has many many tricks. And reading the descent of man or the origin of species you see those tricks on display. And they're really fascinating. But you're right, I think people like Darwin do stand out. I work on Darwin because I think I find him an interesting intellectual. And he poses many problems that are still relevant today and of course evolutionary theory itself dominates biology and biological discourse. And even contemporary discourse outside the academy. So, I think your point is well taken but not all historians take that point. Okay, so let me give you some of the things from the chat here's some questions people ask. One of my colleagues Arlene Chapman said what are your thoughts regarding the potential role of intentional misinformation as it relates to the history of science should scientific discovery. Would it remain ultimately intact in the presence of this, all this misinformation. Well there seems to be a flood of misinformation. Coursing through the internet. I think you have to rely on people whose authority is gained by having published decent books on the topic of your interest, who have a decent reputation, and not simply pick up the kinds of information that scattered along the internet. Without any evidence of the authors credentials. Not sounding rather old fashioned I suspect. But that seems to me only one of the, the only reliable way of making sure that you're getting authentic information. Okay, it was a question I saw in the chat in the chat about. What about Darwin's incorrect views about races. Yeah, that was Elena's question. Yes, it says, given some of Darwin's incorrect assumption about race and gender, how do you teach his intellectual theories while also recognizing and correcting these errors in his thought without completely discrediting his work. So how do you avoid cancel culture or, you know, kind of all or none thinking I think that's a great question is, because just like you said Bob, that's the reason you don't like heroes because people are multi-dimensional. And over time, you know you can't judge, you know, he could only know what he knew at the time you know he couldn't know what we know. Well I think that's right and I think that someone like Charles Darwin is in the son of the 19th century. He doesn't know what we know he doesn't have the information that we have he doesn't have the kinds of genetics that we have. So what Darwin must, I think, be forgiven for is he wasn't wise before his time. He took conventional ideas and found support for them. Races are like variations of a species. Darwin was not. He's a complex figure he was an abolitionist from the beginning. His whole family was an abolitionist family. And in his diaries he gives poignant examples of the deleterious effects of racism in Brazil and in Central America. For instance, he tells the story of his traveling through the jungles of Central America and he reached a river. And there was a bargeman who would take people across the river was a big African American. And Darwin in his wonderfully naive way was trying to make himself understood he didn't speak Portuguese, but he was gesticulating like crazy to make himself understood. And the bargeman thought that Darwin was going to hit him. And Darwin remarks this man was about, you know, 100 pounds heavier than Charles Darwin was. He could have just taken Darwin by the throat and strangled him easily. But he thought that that was the kind of degradation that slavery brought. And he thought, namely, that this man was afraid that this puny white guy was going to slap him or hit him. And he cringed at that thought. So Darwin was a man who recognized face on the deleterious effects of slavery and he gives many other anecdotes about the difficulties of slavery. And he thought that some races were more advanced than others. This has no impact, I think, generally on his theory. And you have to be careful when reading Charles Darwin's accounts, and not to, as you said, Nindy not to dismiss the whole account on the basis of some Miss Dakin apprehensions that he as a 19th century figure was liable to read just some other things from the chat so. Jay Carlson said, lots of previous theories have fit the data and work that we nowadays are false. Philosophers of science might say that evolution is empirically adequate. It fits the data we have. Whether it's correct, accurately describing the way the world works, is a more robust metaphysical claim that scientists might be more hesitant to admit. And then Chris Shea follows up with Darwin began his career training to be a surgeon and quickly abandoned the profession and are in his intellectual evolution. Did he ever turn to think about evolutionary aspects of disease. And he wrote this hot topic now since it's of COVID. No, I don't think he did. He thought about conceptual evolution in a few passing remarks he saw that his theory could be applied to the development of ideas over time. But as far as I know he didn't have any, he didn't apply his theory to the development of disease. You know, he was a great disappointment to his father, because he did go up to Edinburgh Medical School where his grandfather had gotten his medical degree, where his father had gotten his medical degree, where his older brother, also called Erasmus, got his medical degree. But Charles just couldn't hack it. He writes in a letter to a friend to think about taking a course in metarium medica at eight o'clock on a winter's morning in Edinburgh is something fearful to remember. And one occasion when he watched a operation on a young girl was having her leg amputated because of gangrene. It was done of course without anesthetics, and he couldn't take that, the pain that she expressed, and he ran out of the operating theater. So Darren was not cut out to be a physician. And as far as I know he never thought too seriously about medicine thereafter. Okay, another question for you. I'm curious about your suggestion that implementing method acting and historical work, and how the historian is responsible for rendering the actions of historical figures comprehensible. Do you think that this suggestion could find purchase outside of the field of history, and have you thought about how a similar skill could be used by clinicians for instance. Well, I think having sympathy for your actors in history are for your patients in the clinical in the clinic is important. You have to see the world through their eyes in history it's a little more. Well, I don't know if it's more difficult at all. In the case of Darwin, he had we have huge supplies of his letters diaries manuscripts. In my own case. Darwin ran across a problem. That I knew it was going to bother him. And I thought he must have worked on a solution to this problem. And I was pretty sure that he was the kind of individual who wouldn't let the problem like this simply lay fallow. After some diligence search I did find a small manuscript in which he outlined the problem and propose several solutions to the problem. So I think when you have a great deal of sympathy and compassion and understanding of your actor or patient, you'll be a lot better off the patient and the actor are more than a set of symptoms. And I think putting yourself in their place. I'll say as a historian that helps me write the kinds of histories I write. But I'll let the opposite I'll let the doctors in the audience confess to either being sympathetic to their patients as an aid to understanding their symptoms. And them as individuals. That's a loaded question but let me. Let me just give you another instead of like answering that let me give you another question. One of our colleagues right does the fittest information survive. We be more in the fake news but maybe it's survival tells us something about information ecosystem. I think it does. It means that there's already, there's already receptive ecosystem for fake information. If it fell on deaf ears, and no one responded to it, it would die a natural death. But I think insofar as it gets a response, and it works well in the kind of conceptual ecological system that exists on the internet. Then it's been naturally selected and it will produce offspring. That is absolutely true. Jay Carlson has his hand up. Oh, Jay, great. Go right ahead. Take it away. Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks for this talk. Full disclosure. I'm also I'm a philosopher and someone who's preoccupied by infestimology and also by disagreement. And I'm thinking about your, your sort of discussion that you mentioned with Michael roots. And we're in a sense like there's, there is a sort of, there is this sort of idea that what history is about it's about sort of like getting us to the facts whatever the facts are that you know the job of the historian as a historian is to describe those facts as accurately as possible. And of course, the, the issue that you've sort of that you sort of that is raised here is that we can, we can, you know, the, the historians job is also very reconstructive, it's very, you know, and very frankly, has to be it's selected it has to be selected. And what how it sort of compiles its evidence to tell certain to tell a certain story. My question though is what, what are your, what are the, what are the criteria, you think we should use to, to, to, to adjudicate between these sort of, you know, these two, you know, sort of warring, you know, conflicting stories, what's the sort of what's the sort of criteria we use to say that one is a better account than the other. Great question. Well, first of all, yes, the historian must be sure of his or her facts and relationship to the individuals talked about. But not only about the facts one has to construct an adequate explanation for events. How did Darwin come up with this theory, for example, that has been a preoccupation of historians and science for a long time now. And what are the criteria you ask for selecting among the facts and data to render an explanation. Acute. Well, I think you have to read everything the author wrote as best or as much of it as you possibly can. So, gathering, as it were the data is important but also making the argument is important as well. The data has to be understood, the facts have to be understood and constructed such that they yield an explanation for the events of interest. How did Darwin, for example, come up with this theory. Why did he delay and publishing on human beings, those kinds of questions. And it requires I think both a sufficient amount of evidence on the one hand, and intellectual dexterity on the other to construct the kind of explanatory framework that seems adequate. The same question of the of the physicians assembled here. How do they know that their diagnosis is adequate. When do they stop asking the patient about his or her symptoms and come to a conclusion about well I think I understand your problem now. I suspect you'd get a few different answers from the physicians assembled. Oh, get some ideas. Mass you're open. Hi, can you hear me okay. Yeah. Hi great I'm really fascinated I'm speaking to you and listening to you here from South Yorkshire in England, over across the pond. I'm a psychiatrist. And I'm particularly interested in psychiatric phenomenology. I'm really interested to hear your view and take on the concept of delusional memory. I'm very interested with typically with schizophrenia, who are deemed to have delusional memory. As far as we can ascertain from the point of view of the patient from his or her subjective worldview, there is absolutely no distinction between that particular so called delusional memory. Irrespective of whether it, whether there's any objective evidence for it having ever occurred. So I'm really interested in your perspective on that in the context of evolutionary biology and that and history in terms of how do we make history and you've spoken a little bit about how does history assemble itself in our minds and how we articulate that. Well let me just give you a little vignette about Darwin and memory. In defending his position. He said that he never employed the idea of theory in collecting facts as a good empiricist he simply collected facts wholesale. And only when he collected enough facts did he start working on a theory. Now he said that because that's what you're supposed to say as a good empiricist. If you follow the rules of Francis Bacon. He would allow your activities to spin out. But if you look at Darwin's notebooks. No phrase appears more frequently than, according to my theory that is as he was collecting facts. He was also theorizing. And that kind of expression just escaped his memory when he was reflecting on his activity after he had published the origin of species. So even I don't think Darwin was schizophrenic about this at all. He just had a lapse of memory and he knew what the right answer should be the right answer is a good empiricist as you collect facts and don't speculate until you've got enough facts. And that's not what he did. And we know he didn't do it that way because we have his notebooks. What is the case with schizophrenics. I'll leave that to the psychiatrist in the audience. I will say though, and this is simply word association. One of when Darwin came back from his Beagle voyage. He was plagued by a number of symptoms. He had digestive problems he had heart palpitations. And it was a great mystery of what Darwin's disease was. Some thought at Chagos disease Darwin's a great collector of bugs he love beetles. And the assumption was that he was bitten by a beetle carrying the parasite of Chagos disease. And he therefore suffered from it for most of his rest of his life. In trying to understand Chagos disease. One historian of medicine suggested what it wasn't Chagos disease. It was a psychiatric problem that he had. Darwin disappointed his father. And the writing of the origin of species was comparable to killing the old Adam and his real father and he hesitated to plunge in the knife. And as a result of that he suffered these kinds of symptoms of getting us and heart palpitation. But that was a psychiatric view, a more reliable view was it was an e atrogenic production Darwin took the waters frequently and probably the prescriptions offered him for his disease, did not help. And I'm not psych about schizophrenia I have no further judgment. Anybody else interested in asking a question or making a comment or should we give Bob a little downtime till he meets with the fellows again, I think at 130. Just have one comment. Jerry Casier wrote a number of years ago 1989 to be specific, you know, certainty is unattainable in medicine. And I think that's true in biology also. We have islands of knowledge and a great sea of unknown as we get closer as as the island in increases in size so does the shore of ignorance. I wonder, that's, it seems to me that's a good way to look at this whole thing and we're talking with people who, who say well, but the experts said such and such. Well, we're doing the best we could with the info we can with the information available. I just you might want to comment on that. Well, I think that is the account I would give of Darwin in the 19th century. He had certain views those views were impregnated in many ways by the culture in which he existed. And he makes judgments on the basis of the evidence that he has, but it's not the full scope of evidence possible. And Darwin was not privy to the full scope of evidence possible so he himself would be the first I think to suggest that his views were quite limited, and they were always improving. The history of evolutionary biology is a, I think, testimony to affirm foundation and continued improvement through the several decades after Darwin. So I think you're right. Thanks Richie I just want to say certainty is unattainable. There are islands of knowledge and a great sea of unknown. Well, I actually think that's a great, great time to leave this and I really appreciate Bob coming to speak to this group. And I know the fellows will meet with him in a little bit later but the, but I just wanted to also second mark is that next week we're going to have one of Mark and my old friends and former U of C student who's now faculty at Columbia, Lydia Dugdale and she actually wrote a terrific book she'll talk to you a little bit more about it this week but we're going to finish the 2021 year from this lecture series, continuing with one outstanding speaker after another and thanks Bob I promise nobody else gave a lecture as interesting or provocative as you is definitely not the thing we hear every day so we really appreciate your time and energy and happy holidays to everyone. Thank you.