[extropy-chat] thank evolution for the interstate highway system

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Wed Dec 3 17:29:22 UTC 2003


--- Charlie Stross <charlie at antipope.org> wrote:
> 
> On 3 Dec 2003, at 02:41, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > Well, I assume you like SF. Neal Stephenson wrote a book called
> Snow
> > Crash which you might be familiar with. A lot of the basic ideas he
> > used in fleshing out his plot device of root language viral
> programming
> > of humans is based on Jaynes' work. Of course, he does take it to a
> > rather absurd conclusion... but that was the book that actually
> > motivated me to read Jaynes, to get the straight scoop.
> 
> It's worth noting that Jaynes' book has been more than somewhat 
> discredited in the field; he is to evolutionary biology pretty much 
> what Immanuel Velikovsky is to planetography.
> 
> There's a reason some SF authors like his ideas; it's because they
> make 
> for a great fictional playground-setting. That's not exactly the same
> thing as liking them because the evidence supports them ....

Well, they primarily don't like him because he is a pshrink, not a
biologist or an anthropologist or an archaeologist. Considering the
stories anthropologists are known to weave from the most specious of
evidence, the only thing that saves them from similar derision is that
there is so little evidence to begin with.


=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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