On 8/25/2015 11:09 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
That's what most comments to Fodor's argument look like: this is false because it must
be false. But this king of answers are not that impressive. It is up to you to believe
that Fodor is wrong but if you what to prove it, you must invest more time.
This is for example how Fodor describes natural selection:
"One is its familiar historical account of our phylogeny; the other is the theory of
natural selection, which purports to characterise the mechanism not just of the
formation of species, but of all evolutionary changes in the innate properties of
organisms. According to selection theory, a creature’s ‘phenotype’ – the inventory of
its heritable traits, including, notably, its heritable mental traits – is an adaptation
to the demands of its ecological situation.
But that not what evolution says. If it did it would have implied that Darwin's finches
would be a single species, since they were all in the same environment. Let's see Fodor
cite some reputable evolutionary biologist who says this.
Adaptation is a name for the process by which environmental variables select among the
creatures in a population the ones whose heritable properties are most fit for survival
and reproduction. So environmental selection for fitness is (perhaps plus or minus a
bit) the process par excellence that prunes the evolutionary tree."
There is more to this end in his paper. Finally, this is what Darwin writes about
natural selection in On the Origin of Species:
"[natural selection] is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every
variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all
that is good…."
This is exactly what Fodor rejects.
Darwin is the first word on evolution, not the last, and you're cherry picking from him.
He also recognized sexual selection and neutral, random variation.
Fodor writes, "Hence natural selection should not only select a trait, rather it
must select for it." Which is just his fantasy interpretation of evolution.
Brent
Evgenii
Am 24.08.2015 um 20:10 schrieb meekerdb:
On 8/24/2015 10:27 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
Am 23.08.2015 um 19:47 schrieb meekerdb:
On 8/23/2015 12:07 AM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
...
The comments do not answer Fodor's argument. To this end, you
can read his answer to comments.
I read his answer and it's silly. He says that Darwin's
explanation of why polar bears are white is incoherent because
the natural selection of white polar bears doesn't entail
Darwin's explanation. But that's silly because scientific
explanations are never entailed by the experimental evidence they
explain.
To understand Fodor's answer it is necessary to understand his
argument. Shortly:
1) Natural selection is assumed to be unintentional. It just
happens but it does not has a goal.
2) The existence of coextensive traits in the organism is the rule.
Hence natural selection should not only select a trait, rather it
must select for.
But that's Fodor's made up, imaginary version of natural selection.
Natural selection isn't required to select for some trait. It only
means that given a situation some traits lead to more successful
reproduction than others. Fodor is taking a metaphorical phrase,
reinterpreting it anthropomorphically, and then saying, "See that
phrase doesn't apply."
Brent
3) "Select for" is a part of an intentional process. Hence
according to the point 1, natural selection cannot select for.
Whiteness of a polar bear is an coextensive trait. To select it
means to select it for. Natural selection cannot do it.
Well, one has also to define natural selection more carefully, as
it happens that different people understand what natural selection
is differently. Fodor's definition to this end is in the paper.
Evgenii
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