Ian That Ernst Mayr stuff and Pirsig's published take on evolution as competitive pre-dates much "extended phenotype" thinking.
The "organism" may be an ecologically interconnected complex set of species, with co-evolution going on, rather than one one one competition. I keep saying "red in tooth and claw" is old hat - for the rabid free-marketeers to hang their hats on. But ideas evolve as Pirsig also says and his description of evolution were OK historically. [Krimel] That is a broad definition of "organism." I like it. We have hundreds of symbiotic microbes that co-evolved inside us. If any one of them gets messed up we are all goners. Would you say a farm qualifies as an organism? I would certainly give Pirsig a pass on Chapter 11 if it did not inspire such bizarre interpretations. It is not as through history gives Pirsig a pass either. Wilson and Dawkins both made lots of noise in the late '70s with Selfish Gene and Biodiversity. The Blind Watchmaker was in 1986. Wilson's Biodiversity was 1988. By the time Lila was published in 1992 Gould had published half a dozen popular books on evolution dating from within a few years of ZMM. "Nature" had been on PBS for 10 years by 1992; "Nova" for almost 20. Teleological views of evolution were not current thinking when Lila was written. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
