[ExI] Really? and EP

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Tue Apr 21 16:02:27 UTC 2009


On 4/20/09, Keith Henson wrote:
> Thanks for totally misrepresenting the work of Dr Gregory Clark.  I
>  don't know how the rest of the list members feel about it, but it
>  seems below the appropriate level of discourse.
>


Yoi think I should strive to attain the discourse level of your
suggestion that I don't have a clue about evolution theory?

You have misunderstood what your hero Dr Clark wrote.
He is not a scientist.   He's a historian.
He was talking about *cultural* evolution.
(Though he threw in a lot of 'maybes and 'perhaps' to confuse matters).


>
> These models are incomplete, they even admit it.  They are not a
>  system level model and they lack the framework provided by an
>  evolutionary psychology approach.
>
>  Dr. Clark's leading edge (and politically incorrect) work advances the
>  point that a lot of the belligerence and aggressive traits were bred
>  to a much lower level in stable agrarian societies over 20 plus
>  generations.  That's not to say that such people do not respond to
>  belligerence and aggression appropriately, but it's not everyday
>  behavior the way it is in the Yanamano.
>


Dr Clark doesn't even have a model, far less an incomplete model.

He is a story-teller. He has no scientific evidence at all for genetic
changes causing the Industrial Revolution. He has some evidence for
cultural transmission of ideas via rich middle-class families, but
even this is confused by him ignoring all the other methods of
cultural transmission like schools, churches, legal institutions,
social tradition, etc.


BillK



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