Comments on: How Not to Be a Darwinist

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:34:35 +0000

I would like to refer you to Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science. He argues rather simply that simple rules can create very complicated systems, and that making the rules more complicated does not necessarily make the end result more complicated. Rather than using logic to sway the reader, he shows how to make your own simulations to show your self how it works.

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:48:56 +0000

That fellow is apparently aptly named, since all his eyes are on his tail feathers.

By: q

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:11:28 +0000

And since accurate representations are selected for, we probably get basic things right most of the time. A fundamental misinterpretation of the theory of Natural Selection is to assume that becuase something currently exists, it represents the “best of kind”. The existence or non-existence of natural selection cannot be used to demonstrate any existing fact or phenomenon. NS simply explains how patterns of processes can develop over time. If stupid forgetful shortsighted people make more babies, we end up with a stupid shortsighted forgetful race.

By: enzo rossi

enzo rossi — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 11:31:13 +0000

I’ve only got rather vague recollections about this, but isn’t Peacocke’s argument quite similar to the evolutionary argument in Nozick’s The Nature of Rationality?

By: dave heasman

dave heasman — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 10:19:51 +0000

I don’t like the overall argument, if only because it begs the question of the origin of the theory of Natural Selection – we’ve been Naturally Selected to discover & believe in Natural Selection – apart of course from Them That Don’t, who might, come to think of it, have emerged Some Other Way. And, as I’m not a philosopher (you noticed?) this puzzled me “The amount of complex interactions needed to generate a selective process is rather staggering compared to what you need to mirror nature” But isn’t “generating a selective process” a very small component part of the activity of “mirroring nature”?

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 09:29:43 +0000

We can justify the transition because we’re probably evolved by natural selection and that means (probably) that we were selected for having accurate representations at least of certain fundamental things. I have to say that I’m not especially happy with this part of the argument as it stands, though some work on what is involved in “accurate representation” might patch things here. Bees, bats, lizards and vultures are all naturally evolved creatures, and yet the way the world is to me and is to one of those creatures will probably differ very significantly. So to the extent to which “X is a an accurate represention of W” and “Y is an accurate representation of W” carries some implication of similarity between X and Y there looks to be a problem. Furthermore, it is far from obvious that natural selection favours accurate represention anyway, as well-known examples of cognitive bias attest. Extra bit, which I should have integrated above and which may help with the way in which different creatures represent the world: you move from “how do we ever get to know that the external world is anything like how it looks” to a notion of “accurate representation.” But (see Nelson Goodman passim) an accurate representation of something needn’t be anything like that something: a map or a diagram can accurately represent that of which it is a map or a diagram without looking anything like what it represents (of course, you know that).

By: rilkefan

rilkefan — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 05:44:16 +0000

“For instance, the hypothesis of a young earth created by a miracle with creatures with representative capacity seems to avoid some of the messy details of evolutionary theory.” Whence the Complex creator, one might ask. And what’s messy about evolutionary theory beyond discrete genetic inheritance? I totally don’t follow your third point. Isn’t Peacocke trying to give the equivalent of an existence proof, which while not as good as a constructive proof is not therefore wrong?