Submitted by Anne Dalke on Wed, 04/04/2007 - 3:37pm.
4/04/07
Sarah—
You set this up well, telling me what your project is, and where you plan to arrive by the end of it; I like the signposts! Your claim is that “skyhooks” are necessary (as signposts? place holders?) in order for the story of evolution to continue to evolve. In an interesting revision of Dennett, you argue that “we cannot settle for cranes when there is ample evidence to support the need for skyhooks….”
What I most appreciate in your move, in the center of the paper, to follow Darwin in arguing from the “bottom-up,” from concrete observations, rather than “top-down” (from an over-arching theory). Demonstrating how theory can emerge from the bottom up, rather than being imposed from the top-down, is a very nice set-up for your final move into emergence theory.
You use current concerns about global warming as an example of our altruistic tendencies; not sure that works, since the biological argument of natural selection has to do with preserving the species, not the individual organism. I’m also not quite sure I follow/understand your argument that probability is “always @ odds” with Darwinian randomness.
You frequently say that “you feel” (for example, that one theory is “less wrong” than another. What’s the difference between feeling, belief, argument, knowledge? You need, in a paper like this one, to back up all beliefs with data, evidence, observations, and sometimes those dimensions are missing here. What are your reasons for your beliefs? Give me data! Evidence!
Anne
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calling for skyhooks
4/04/07
Sarah—
You set this up well, telling me what your project is, and where you plan to arrive by the end of it; I like the signposts! Your claim is that “skyhooks” are necessary (as signposts? place holders?) in order for the story of evolution to continue to evolve. In an interesting revision of Dennett, you argue that “we cannot settle for cranes when there is ample evidence to support the need for skyhooks….”
What I most appreciate in your move, in the center of the paper, to follow Darwin in arguing from the “bottom-up,” from concrete observations, rather than “top-down” (from an over-arching theory). Demonstrating how theory can emerge from the bottom up, rather than being imposed from the top-down, is a very nice set-up for your final move into emergence theory.
You use current concerns about global warming as an example of our altruistic tendencies; not sure that works, since the biological argument of natural selection has to do with preserving the species, not the individual organism. I’m also not quite sure I follow/understand your argument that probability is “always @ odds” with Darwinian randomness.
You frequently say that “you feel” (for example, that one theory is “less wrong” than another. What’s the difference between feeling, belief, argument, knowledge? You need, in a paper like this one, to back up all beliefs with data, evidence, observations, and sometimes those dimensions are missing here. What are your reasons for your beliefs? Give me data! Evidence!
Anne