Talk:David Berlinski
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I believe Berlinski's PhD was in mathematics, not philosophy.
[edit] Natural selection as a universal mechanism
- ....Natural selection as some sort of universal mechanism is just as implausable as having a single differential equation explain all of physics
Berlinski said this in replying to his critics following his groundbraking article "The Deniable Darwin" http://www.arn.org/docs/berlinski/db_deniabledarwin0696.htm I am busy tracking down the reference. To me this single statement was a turning point in trying to understand the mechanism of evolution:"Natural selection". The question is:What naturaled and who did the selecting? and Is NS a cause or an effect? The phrase 'Natural selection' is language confusion. As a technical term it is a misleading oxymoron. The proper term should be:"The Selection Force". At least one can visualise a God-like force 'selecting' for things. Berlinski notes:"... NS is a force because it does something..." Darwin used the phrase over 300 times in his Origin of Species as some sort of universal mechanism that explains everything Origin of Species, 6th Edition, by Darwin http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/otoos610.txt
The phrase Natural Selection is a form of linguistic terrorism. It is a synonym for bad luck, misfortune, and getting the pointy end of the stick. It is empirically, that is, scientifically, meaningless, but it makes a pretty metaphor. It originated in a categorical error parading as an analogy. For the past 150 years, it has deluded unthinking simpletons into mistaking it for a real phenomenon, when it is nothing but a collective anthropomorphization of non-specified natural causes of mortality presented as a mystical, animist 'presence' possessing the intelligence and powers of descrimination necessary to make actual choices, i.e., 'selections'. As such it may be accurately summed up as a childish religious mystique, that is, as a superstition for the Godless. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.194 (talk • contribs) 19:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
- One individual's demise is bad luck. The demise of thousands and millions of individuals over thousands and millions of years, is scientific empirical evidence, not mystical or animist or religious. Have the courage of your convictions to register an (anonymous) ID and sign your Talk page comments with four tildes. Hu 23:09, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Language confusion is ALSO evident in Decent with Modification, Micro Evolution, Macro Evolution. Who did the modifying, what micro'd and what macro'd? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.194 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
P.T. Saunders refered to the lack of a clear definition of Darwinism: "There is no canonical definition of neo-Darwinism, and surprisingly few writers on the subject seem to consider it necessary to spell out precisely what it is that they are discussing. This is especially curious in view of the controversy which dogs the theory, for one might have thought that a first step towards resolving the dispute over its status would be to decide upon a generally acceptable definition over it. ... Of course, the lack of firm definition does, as we shall see, make the theory much easier to defend." P.T. Saunders & M.W. Ho, "Is Neo-Darwinism Falsifiable? - And Does It Matter?", Nature and System (1982) 4:179-196, p. 179. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.194 (talk • contribs) 16:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Pause for the Logician: Swimming in the soundless sea, the shark has survived for millions of years, sleek as a knife blade and twice as dull. The shark is an organism wonderfully adapted to its environment. Pause. And then the bright brittle voice of logical folly intrudes: after all, it has survived for millions of years.
En example of this logical folly is vividly demonstrated by Gould:
"The geological record features episodes of high dying, during which extinction-prone groups are more likely to disappear, leaving extinction-resistant groups as life's legacy". S.J. Gould & N. Eldredge, "Punctuated equilibrium comes of age", Nature (1993) 366:223-7, p. 225
Question:How was this "extinction-proneness" measured, except by noting that the groups went extinct?
We are told that the ape and the human 'diverged' from a common ancestor. But to an observer back then, would this common ancestor not have looked like an ape?
n Fred Hoyle's "Mathematics of Evolution" p.3-4 he states that Biologists have in a sense become mentally ill. Ken Ham from http://www.answersingenesis.org/ states: I believe in Natural Selection. Thus not just the Evolutionists are suffering from mental illness but the Young Earth Creationists as well. Creationists, Dembski, Scordova,Behe and Evolutionists continually debate each other, but their language is so confused that their debates are meaningless. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.194 (talk • contribs) 08:30, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
p.277 of Berlinski's book Black Mischief: "...In general, trouble arises simply because the connection between biological traits and fitness is never derived from first principles. If the pig were to be bortn with wheels mounted on ball bearings instead of trotters, would it be better off on some scale of porcine fitness? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 196.11.241.194 (talk • contribs) 01:29, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
The phrase 'Natural Selection' is thus entirely meaningless. And as Berlinski noted:"...once NS as a concept is destroyed nothing at all remains of evolution." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.239.183.213 (talk • contribs).
- Steven Pinker addresses this question in his discussion of evolutionary theory in The Language Instinct (ca. 1992) -- i.e. is "fitness" in Darwinian selection a tautological concept? The answer he gives (adequately, I think) is that fitness can be described in an objective engineering sense relative to the environment -- e.g. an animal that lives in the desert and can survive many days or even weeks without water is objectively more "fit" in that environment than an animal that had less-efficient thermoregulation and required water much more frequently. In this context I am reminded of Richard Feynman's comment on the "polywater" controversy of the early 1970s (see Polywater by Felix Franks, MIT Press -- polywater was supposedly a more ordered, lower-energy state of water) that polywater did not exist, because if it did, there would exist some organism that didn't need to eat -- it would simply ingest ordinary water and excrete polywater and live on the energy difference.
- 137.82.188.68 04:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Please respect Talk page purpose
Please respect the purpose of this Talk page: It is to discuss edits made or proposed for the Berlinski article. It is NOT a forum for discussing evolution, natural selection, creationism, creation science, or the like. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 16:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Tried to clean it up a bit
Tried to clean it up a bit without touching anything contentious. I think the "tutored" in quotes should have a citation as to by whom the term is attributed to have been used. -- QTJ 07:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
