B1: Darwin's Dangerous Idea

This is my first "Book Review" type post, which I've designated with a "B". It is about one of my favorite books of all time: Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which combines philosophy with evolutionary biology to really hammer home some main points, as well as synthesize a great deal of knowledge into a coherent whole.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Darwin's
• Dangerous
• Idea
• Biology
• Philosophy
• Useful

[renshank]

And there is no response possible to that kind of thinking, which may unfortunately mean we are at a permanent impasse.  The history of one universe can't be evidence for anything other than what actually occurred. Thinking of us as the pinnacle of evolution is simply wrong. Bacteria today have evolved for just as long as we have. They are just as much a pinnacle as we.

If you properly frame a story, you can come to any conclusion. I hope I get to make more vids soon. Peace.

[0ThouArtThat0]

I'm not talking about logical axioms per say. I'm talking about metaphysical principles. We cannot explain observations without first speculating what lies behind them. In this sense, every theory is a set of suppositions about what is going on behind the scenes. Scientific paradigms represent the super-structures underlying related theoretical speculations.

[ContraWagner]

"1) without sound axioms, scientific explanation is impossible."

Just look at the daily practise of scientists and see if any of them really have logical axioms they work with. Science through out the history hasn't operated this way at all.

[0ThouArtThat0]

You can shout "anthropic principle!" but I think that is a cop out. This is the only universe we will ever know, and its history is obviously evidence (at least to my eyes) of a creative advance into more and more complex arrangements of energy which correlate with greater and greater intensity of experience.

[0ThouArtThat0]

I would disagree by weight of observational evidence alone. Universe begins as pure potential, a singularity. From there, hyrdogen is formed. Next, stars ignite. Then stars explode, creating heavier elements which form planets around new stars. Then molecules on these planets self-organize into living cells, which evolve into more complex multicellular life, which through a process of cerebralization leads to homo sapiens. There is a clear tendency toward complexity, a clear direction.

[renshank]

I don't think that this view of evolution is supported by any facts.

[renshank]

1) The axiom thing was more of a technical point. You can have consistent axioms, but not sound ones. There is no logical structural relation to axioms, that's what makes them axioms.

2) The idea that the idea conveyed here on the internet and one which would be conveyed in person are still the same idea does not strike me as substance dualism to me. Why does it strike you as such?

[0ThouArtThat0]

The idea that organisms were not created ready-made a few thousand years ago by an entirely transcendent deity is rather obvious to me. We have all evolved over billions of years from simple cells. But beyond this simple, obvious truth, evolution can be characterized in many ways, some of which are entirely contrary to Dennett's view. Try Teilhard de Chardin, for instance. Science has proven evolution, but it hasn't proven evolution is mindless and algorithmic. That's Dennett's metaphysics.

[0ThouArtThat0]

He thinks evolution is "a mindless, purposeless, algorithmic process." I think evolution is a mindful, purposeful advance into novelty.

[0ThouArtThat0]

1) without sound axioms, scientific explanation is impossible.

2)Read page 353-355 about how genes can be usefully understood as substrate neutral information (but aren't really), while memes are indeed pure, substrate-neutral information. This is substance dualism.

3)Yes, evolution is firmly established and it forms the background for everything I think. Dennett has a different view of evolution that I, however.