01-02-2008, 04:07 AM | #1 |
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Interesting article for the scientist(s) among us ...
http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/l...ind-about.aspx
"One can detect a whiff of revolution in the air. Harvard biologist Marc Hauser says he has changed his mind about “Darwinian Reasoning.” No, he has not become a creationist, but is now more skeptical of the dogmatic view that all traits are adaptive. "In recent years, I have made less use of Darwin’s adaptive logic,” Hauser writes. “It is not because I think that the adaptive program has failed, or that it can’t continue to account for a wide variety of human and animal behavior. But with respect to questions of human and animal mind, and especially some of the unique products of the human mind—language, morality, music, mathematics—I have, well, changed my mind about the power of Darwinian reasoning. . . . [W]here I have lost the faith, so to speak, is in the power of the adaptive program to explain or predict particular design features of human thought. Although it is certainly reasonable to say that language, morality and music have design features that are adaptive, that would enhance reproduction and survival, evidence for such claims is sorely missing.” |
01-02-2008, 04:27 AM | #2 | |
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Quote:
Natural selection is the most important mechanism of evolution, but that doesn't mean it is responsible for the majority of our genome. I think it probably is, however. That author's use of "dogma" and "revolution" are typically ignorant. The late Stephen J Gould, one of the most influential scientists of the last few decades, emphasized the importance of mechanisms other than natural selection in evolution. Various others have emphasized them even more than he did. Science journalism is wrong more often than not. |
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01-02-2008, 04:45 AM | #3 | |
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Zero creativity, no sense of humor .... Last edited by tooblue; 01-02-2008 at 04:51 AM. |
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01-02-2008, 05:00 AM | #4 | |
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01-02-2008, 05:35 AM | #5 | |
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01-02-2008, 05:51 AM | #6 |
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01-02-2008, 03:48 PM | #7 |
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