Jerry Fodor is a very smart guy (and easily the funniest man in all of philosophy). I read a draft of his article on this topic last spring. I cannot reproduce the argument on the fly, but it primarily turns on the semantics of the phrase "selecting for"; roughly, he argues that nature can't prospectively "see" the kinds of things that we retrospectively typically say are being "selected for." I have studied a lot of Fodor's cognitive scientific work in the past, and still found this argument very difficult to follow. That doesn't mean it's wrong, necessarily. It does mean that we're going to get an awful lot of outraged critiques from people who don't actually understand what he's talking about. And finally, the ID folks are not going to take any solace from Fodor's argument. He skewers them too.
Regards, -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-5115 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ =================================== [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > There's yet another (ho-hum) attack on evolution. Yet this one, > surprisingly, doesn't come from the usual suspects, fundamentalist > regious types, but from a far more dangerous source, a philosopher and > cognitive scientist with the most impeccable of credentials. Wikipedia, > in fact, quotes another philosopher that this destroyer of Darwinism, > Jerry Fodor, is "by common consent the leading philosopher of mind in > the world today". So it seems we should listen up and pay attention. As > for why pigs don't have wings, I don't have a clue, but he apparently > does. > > His answer appears in an essay with that title in the London Review of > Books (October 18/07 at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n20/print/fodo01_.html). > > He asserts: > > "An appreciable number of perfectly reasonable biologists are coming to > think that the theory of natural selection can no longer be taken for > granted. This is, so far, mostly straws in the wind; but it¨s not out of > the question that a scientific revolution - no less than a major revision > of evolutionary theory - is in the offing...It is faced with what may be > the most serious challenge it has had so far. Darwinists have been known > to say that adaptationism is the best idea that anybody has ever had. It > would be a good joke if the best idea that anybody has ever had turned > out not to be true. > > Pretty heavy stuff, right? I've got to say I don't get it. But as he's > apparently preparing a whole book on the subject, I expect we're going to > hear lots more about it. Let's just hope the IDers don't find out. > > Stephen > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. > Professor of Psychology, Emeritus > Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 2600 College St. > Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 > Canada > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --- > > > - === ---
