Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Eliminating the state board would probably still constitute a win for the
people who want evolution out of the curriculum, since it will probably
just get the state out of the curriculum-setting business.  But matters as
they stand are such an embarassment that I actually gave a moment's
thought to burning my high school diploma in protest -- the point being
that they've already taken one huge step towards rendering it worthless.

Evolution isn't only important to the understanding of species diversity
and relatedness, but the concept is finding application throughout
science, and failure to understand it is to fail to be properly prepared
for the study of many subjects.
  

    
Remember where this conference space came from? Whole Earth...
CoEvolutionary Quarterly... Stewart Brand, and all that.

Natural that a group "hrrrmph" about such an act of willful ignorance
and idiotic disservice to the inheritors of our civilization should
find voice here.

So, what do we do about it?
  

    <scribbled by satyr Sat 14 Aug 99 22:27>
  

    
Hrrrmph loudly!

If the situation persists, and particularly if it worsens, universities
may have to start paying special attention to students applying from
Kansas for what they might never have had an opportunity to learn in
school.

A market for remedial education might also develop...
  

    
Indeed.  But meanwhile let's just kick Kansas out of the Union.

wg
  

    
Don't say that too loud; the western third of the state would likely take
you up on the offer...  ;-)
  

    
What's special about that part of it? Watermelons?

(incidentally, I got the watermelon gag in to the Daily Express on friday)
  

    
So you did:
http://www.lineone.net/express/99/08/13/features/f0300darwin-d.html

wg
  

    
> what's special about that part of it

It's culturally western (high plains to be specific), whereas the rest of
the state is more midwestern.
  

    
And they drive like maniacs, at 110 mph.  But then, they *can*.  Forget
curves and hills out there, you're lucky if you see a *tr4ee*.

wg
  

    
I note that the Kansas thing is engendering a lot of debate in the letters
pages here in PA.  Someone wrote today that evolution is a theory the way
the idea that the sun will come up tomorrow is a theory.

wg
  

    
Yes. the creationists' real problem is not with Darwin, but with Hume.
I am trying to get someone to send me over there to write about them but
keep getting sidetracked
.
  

    
My friend Barbara here really liked your NS piece on the Kansas decision;
thought you had captured the thing elegantly.

wg
  

    
Lovers of good clean fun should hasten over to the evolutionary psychology
list at egroups.com
(http://www.egroups.com/groups/evolutionary-psychology/info.html) where
Professors Dennett and HUmphrey are sharing their opinions of me and my
work. So far we haven't got much beyond "sleazy trash journalist" repeated
in various permutations; but I'm sure they'll have some more substantial
abuse in a while.
  

    
It seems to be a little complicated:  you have to join e-groups, then have
to be approved to join the group.

wg
  

    
Why are they picking on you, dear andrewb?
  

    
> I've heard it said that the language of science is mathematics, 
> but that's more true of some sciences than of others, and I don't 
> buy it as a generality.  Mathematics is a set of useful tools, but
> the language of science is reason.

Interesting thread... Andrew I plan to read your book soon.

There is an interesting implicit confusion which seems to permeate
this subject which seems obvious to me, having been in the Hayek
discussion list which is the only other list which seems to have this
level of conversation. Let me put it forward for critical review hear
and see if it stands up:

Evolutionary biology seems to be getting confused with evolutionary
epistemology (the theory of knowledge). In "nature" the core axiom
boils down to "survival of the fittest". In "nurture", we need to admit
the possibility of "imitation of the fittest". The generation length
in evolutionary biology is a lifetime. In the arena of thought, it is
an instant. A brain may go through potentially infinite evolutionary
changes in a single lifetime. The "memetic" process is also therefore
not necessarily Darwinian -- it could be Lamarckian or have various
other mechanisms that drive it. Analogy to Darwinian theory may be
useful ways to gain insights which can then be tested by
experimentation, but not necessarily the only methodology.

Another important insight to note is the implications of Godel. JR
Lucas showed that incompleteness of formal systems in mathematics
implied fallibility of formal logic. We try to explain reality -- it is
a human instinct. But our explanations may be wrong. Science and
"formal theory" borrow meta-mathematical properties to introduce rigor,
and hence scientific explanations are less likely to be wrong than
non-scientific theories. But even formally logical explanations are
fallible because their axioms may be wrong, or at least incomplete.
Logic is the theory of science (ref: Husserl) and mathematics is the
theory of logic. But all -- mathematics, logic, and science -- are
incomplete. Reality outruns our description of it, and always will.

Note that these are levels of abstraction: "The apple fell"
(historical description) "Apples fall" (theory) "Objects fall"
(science) -- we proceed to abstract by removing content. Mathematics is
entirely content free. But if mathematics is incomplete as Godel
showed, all the rest -- science, theory, explanation (moving downward
in terms of abstraction) -- are fallible. Apodictic certainty is not
all that Kant cracked it up to be: despite formal completeness a
scientific theory may still be fallible, and as Thomas Kuhn showed,
that leaves the door open for scientific revolution.

Language is primary to dialogue which is the mechanism of evolutionary
epistemology. This is analogous to evolutionary biology but completely
different from it. In my opinion, all discussions of it would benefit
from a realization of the nature of language, logic, and inherent
fallibility of Cartesian rationalism, while admiting the power of
formal rationalism combined with peer review to mitigate our
fallibility.
  

    
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but I don't think bringing
Godel's theorem into it helps any.  Sure, mathematical models can be
wrong, and sometimes it's a mistake to even try to do things
mathematically because you don't know enough to get started, but the
reasons for that have little to do with formal mathematical
completeness.
  

    
analogies between cultural and biological selection processes are a
nightmare. Anyone interested should go off and read David HUll's Science
as a Process. One thing I;, reasonably certain of, though, is that no two
things can be "analagous and yet completely different".

Dan Dennett is pissed off with me becuase he thinks I am lacking in
respect for his freinds, possibly for himself as well; or, if that
explanaiton is too complicated (and I'm still not quite sure what I did to
offend him in the first place) it might just be because he's a
cantankerous old git.

NIck HUmphrey is upset becasue I trashed in the book a lecture of his on
human rights and religion. But we seem to exchanging civilised private
emails, so that' progress of a sort.
  

    
This is not the Nicholas Humphrey who I last heard of teaching
parapsychological related stuff at Cambridge, is it?

wg
  

    
Andrew wrote:
> One thing I['m] reasonably certain of, though, is that no two
> things can be "analagous and yet completely different".

True, true. This goes to show that the "ideal type" I had in my mind
when writing the words were different from the ideal type you had in
your mind when reading them. "Completely different", I can now see is
not the right phrase because it implies zero similarity, which is
contradicted by the reference to the two things being analogous. What I
should have said is that they are substantially different, as
witnessed by works such as your reference to Hull.

My point is not easy to see but perhaps as I follow this discussion I
can point out specific places where we tend go astray, and make my
point clearer. The implications of Godel in the area of formal logic is
revolutionary, though not yet well recognized. This affect it has on
logic has spill-over effect to ordinary dialogue, which are best
extricated by the Alfred Schutz methodology of analyzing the difference
between the ideal type in the mind and the written word, as I did
above. Most disagreements can be resolved and the truth discovered by
realizing our mental ideal types are not precisely expressed by the
words we write/speak. And all our ideal types are unique idealizations
that no one else completely shares. Strict formal logic allows us to
get close enough to converse despite differences, though cross-cultural
communication takes more discipline than communication within a
culture.
  

    
The Nick HUmphrey is exactly that.
  

    
Somewhere on one of these lists--either here or e-groups--I ran across a
Clarence Darrow quote I can't find again now, something about air and what
would happen if it weren't free.  I don't know.

But if anyone knows  or remembers it, please send it along.

wg
  

    
I just wanted to add two notes.
the book is now out in paperback in the UK; and Simon and Schuster US will
be publishing, or at least distributing adn publicising, it in the US this
autumn. There is also, I'm told, a Japanese translation. The rights were
sold nine months ago. The check is still in the post.
  

    
All right, Andrew! Congratulations on the paperback issue!