[ExI] ExI] intelligence, coherence, the frontal lobe, quantum evolution

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Sun Mar 21 06:05:51 UTC 2010


On 20 March 2010 09:41, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> On 3/1/2010 12:16 AM, Keith Henson wrote:
>
>> I don't know how deep your knowledge of modern biology, particularly
>> evolution is.  Selfish Gene by Dawkins is basic to understanding
>> evolution, I presume you have read that.  What other parts of the
>> topic are you up on?
>
> Before everyone becomes convinced that it's all Real Simple and Clear, I
> suggest a careful read of biologist Peter Watts' scathing comments at:
>
> <http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1163>
>
> (Canadian Watts has just been found guilty on an insanely bogus charge and
> might well spend a couple of years in jail. See his report at:

Evolutionary Psychology is seeming more and more bogus to me. Wall to
wall just-so stories, grand conclusions drawn from very specific,
restricted scope studies, mathematical model based "proofs" with
ridiculously parsimonious assumptions. Plus its popularity seems tied
to its ability to support the political assumptions of the theorist,
whatever they may be (too often a very 19th century social-darwinistic
kind of sensibility), and it has the added benefit that you don't need
to know anything about the real work done in academic disciplines that
have studied the field in question.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple,
and wrong."
H. L. Mencken

-- 
Emlyn

http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog
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