Chris Green said: "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."
Chris- Same old, same old with Fodor (not bad though cause he's normally brilliant). He does get criticized a lot and he is dense as they come (I mean that as a compliment- he is a very deep, read dense, thinker- in the other use of the word, of course, it is we who are dense!). But Fodor is also somewhat a victim of his own brilliance, I think. What he seems to be doing is part brilliant and part stating a brilliantly irrefutable position against natural selection. (First, I think he's also in error in the gist of the argument since he seems to be proposing that in order for nature to select it requires nature to be sentient- it is a bold assumption- or a silly one.) But I think he is also doing a bit of book selling! How in the world does one martial a rational argument against, "a lot of biologists". We'd all rail against such an argument by our students for that one- What biologists? What's their alternative? What percentages? or, "What if it turns out that the best idea of all time is wrong?" Well. What if it doesn't? IMHO, he's resorting to National Enquirer type of inference by question- What if Jerry's really an alien from another planet? :) But Chris and Stephen are both correct that the problem is he'll either be attacked by those who haven't a clue what he's saying and/or he'll be used by ID'ers to support the imperfection (meaning abject failure to ID'ers) of natural selection. In all honesty, he's saying natural selection is questionable as a fact! Huh? So, by this line of logic, Sir Isaac's theories were not good ideas? Jerry certainly knows that great ideas in science are often wrong! I think this is beneath his normal depth (irony?). :) Tim _______________________________ Timothy O. Shearon, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Psychology The College of Idaho Caldwell, ID 83605 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and systems -----Original Message----- From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 11/22/2007 10:53 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Why pigs dcn't have wings 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 > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > > --- > > > - === --- ---
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