Sunday, 21 March 2010, 2:27 pm
By SUZAN MAZUR
Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
"Society decides (votes) what is good science. . . . Scientists, particularly in specialized domains, grow very comfortable with the view that it all makes sense to them individually, and that the entire world (but first, their colleagues!) must make the effort to learn from them, and applaud. No, one does not need biology to understand "evolution". . . . All that is needed is a habit to walk through life with eyes open, i.e., serendipity, and amateurs who question authority." -- Adrian Bejan, J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Duke University
Let's begin with the facts: The days of evolutionary science being an exclusive old boys club are over. The public is a party to the discourse now and knows the emphasis in evolutionary science is on VISION and not textbook rules. And while Rutgers philosopher Jerry Fodor's and University of Arizona cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini's new book What Darwin Got Wrong does not showcase amateur evolutionary theories, the authors do indeed reach out to the public "hop[ing] to convince" through Fodor's sublime ability to argue a point and Piattelli-Palmarini's wit, charm and biophysics savvy that we as a people have got to move on because the central story of the theory of evolution -- natural selection -- is wrong in a way that "can't be repaired". They are careful not to say what the public also knows,i.e., that a critical mass of people is simply tired of Darwin's vision. It's out of vogue.
Fodor loves opera, and the book at times is infused with enough of that kind of passion that I sometimes actually wanted to applaud, like when the authors admit they "don't know what the mechanism [PROCESS] of evolution is" and don't think anyone else does either. Yes, it's been said before, but not before quite like this.
I didn't see any discussion in the book about discrepancies among leading scientists regarding the definition of natural selection. Some I've interviewed described it as purely a political term, i.e., baloney. One said it was both a political and scientific term. Another called it "an expression of some more general process". Yet another cited it as irrelevant to the mission of the search for signs of life in space. Jerry Coyne told an audience at Rockefeller University's Evolution 2008 event that he had 300 examples of natural selection but didn't have time to describe them. Lynn Margulis came closest to a definition: "failure to reach the potential".
Some of the enthusiasm in the front and back of the Fodor, Piattelli-Palmarini book could have been sprinkled onto the pages of the biology literature, which are a bit dry. And even as the authors note that the "laws of form" have been "widely ignored by entire generations of militant geneticists, 'wet' molecular biologists and molecular embryologists," they underdevelop the theory of form section -- which is where the real action is now in evolutionary science -- and instead resort to name-dropping: Stuart Kauffman, Brian Goodwin, Antonio Lima-de-Faria, Stuart Newman, Gerd Muller et al.
There is no mention of right or wrong fresher perspectives like that of Stuart Pivar, whose toroidal model Piattelli-Palmarini found initially interesting, or of geologist Mark McMenamin, who thinks the famous Dolf Seilacher Namibian tongue fossil is a flattened morphogenetic torus, a "paleotorus".
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Fodor loves opera, and the book at times is infused with enough of that kind of passion that I sometimes actually wanted to applaud, like when the authors admit they "don't know what the mechanism [PROCESS] of evolution is" and don't think anyone else does either. Yes, it's been said before, but not before quite like this.
I didn't see any discussion in the book about discrepancies among leading scientists regarding the definition of natural selection. Some I've interviewed described it as purely a political term, i.e., baloney. One said it was both a political and scientific term. Another called it "an expression of some more general process". Yet another cited it as irrelevant to the mission of the search for signs of life in space. Jerry Coyne told an audience at Rockefeller University's Evolution 2008 event that he had 300 examples of natural selection but didn't have time to describe them. Lynn Margulis came closest to a definition: "failure to reach the potential".
Some of the enthusiasm in the front and back of the Fodor, Piattelli-Palmarini book could have been sprinkled onto the pages of the biology literature, which are a bit dry. And even as the authors note that the "laws of form" have been "widely ignored by entire generations of militant geneticists, 'wet' molecular biologists and molecular embryologists," they underdevelop the theory of form section -- which is where the real action is now in evolutionary science -- and instead resort to name-dropping: Stuart Kauffman, Brian Goodwin, Antonio Lima-de-Faria, Stuart Newman, Gerd Muller et al.
There is no mention of right or wrong fresher perspectives like that of Stuart Pivar, whose toroidal model Piattelli-Palmarini found initially interesting, or of geologist Mark McMenamin, who thinks the famous Dolf Seilacher Namibian tongue fossil is a flattened morphogenetic torus, a "paleotorus".
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Read more here/Leia mais aqui: Scoop
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Suzan Mazur is the author of Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry. Her interest in evolution began with a flight from Nairobi into Olduvai Gorge to interview the late paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey. Because of ideological struggles, the Kenyan-Tanzanian border was closed, and Leakey was the only reason authorities in Dar es Salaam agreed to give landing clearance. The meeting followed discovery by Leakey and her team of the 3.6 million-year-old hominid footprints at Laetoli. Suzan Mazur's reports have since appeared in the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, Archaeology, Connoisseur, Omni and others, as well as on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been a guest on McLaughlin, Charlie Rose and various Fox Television News programs. Email: sznmzr @ aol.com
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Suzan Mazur is the author of Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry. Her interest in evolution began with a flight from Nairobi into Olduvai Gorge to interview the late paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey. Because of ideological struggles, the Kenyan-Tanzanian border was closed, and Leakey was the only reason authorities in Dar es Salaam agreed to give landing clearance. The meeting followed discovery by Leakey and her team of the 3.6 million-year-old hominid footprints at Laetoli. Suzan Mazur's reports have since appeared in the Financial Times, The Economist, Forbes, Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, Archaeology, Connoisseur, Omni and others, as well as on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been a guest on McLaughlin, Charlie Rose and various Fox Television News programs. Email: sznmzr @ aol.com
