Steve Jones, Human Nature and Belief, Wed 8 July

[fatandslat]

Point well taken. Evolutionary theory is enormously useful and strong, both in its explanatory power and as a organizing paradigm, across many fields. That said, there's been some less-useful work that invokes evolution, less as a scientific principle than as a powerful metaphor. Speculative work, much of it brilliant and intriguing, but some of it not much removed from thought-experiment. Jones is correct in cautioning its limitations, esp w regard to human society/culture.

[tmtyler]

I totally disagree with all this. Evolutionary theory doesn't just depend on observations based on close living relatives. There's fossils, gene sequences, adaptive fit and other relevant observations as well.