"Gouldists" stop discussing when you ask why the who's-who in evolutionary biology considers Gould's public writing to "quite conspicuously misrepresent the views of [biology's] leading spokesmen", as Ernst Mayr put it.
It irritates me that I spent time building an opinion on this subject a few years ago; "Gouldism" seems to be just YACC (Here: Yet Another Crackpot Cult).
At least this inspired me to a signature.
(I clicked "Submit" instead of "Preview" in the previous message. Sorry if it was hard to read.)
Do the critics of Gould's popular writing really include Mayr, Maynard Smith, George Williams, Hamilton, Wilson, Trives, etc?
And if the list is that long, what are you surprised by where I'm coming from!?
(-: At least Mayr, Maynard Smith and Wilson should have more cred than Gould and Dawkins have together!?:-).
For my information, is it really true that Gould really dropped all references about brain size from the first and second edition of "mismeasured"? Without mentioning that his basic arguments from the first book had been proven wrong?
OK, Gould claims (in his popular writing) that evolutionary biologists ignore alternatives to selection for changing gene frequency. Despite genetic drift being accepted for decades.
Gould (and you echo that, in a book review on your site) claim that Dawkins ignore any possibility of higher-level evolution. In "The extended phenotype" Dawkins expressly discusses the subject of species evolution (he expresses doubt on how much "work" can be done on multiple coworking parameters). Also, 1989 he wrote a paper titled "The evolution of evolvability." (C. Langton (Eds.), Artificial Life. Santa Fe: Addison Wesley). I haven't read the paper, but the title doesn't paint a picture of Dawkins as someone as fixed in opinion as Gould portrays...
So, I'm staring too much on e.g. the obvious straw man attacks in Gould's popular writing? You are arguing that he is dependable when not discussing anything having implications for human evolution and behaviour?
What is that U.S. legal term for "as in small things, so too in big"? I read these subjects as a hobby; I concentrate on people with intellectual integrity since I just don't have the time for the primary literature.
You are arguing that Gould as a Marxist is guilt-by-association from the 70's debate methods (political attacks outside scientific literature in the "Sociobiology Study Group", etc) and his association with Lewontin, Rose, et al?
Well, it seems few (non-marxist) evolutionary biologists consider Gould's writing on alternatives in evolution to be interesting. And neither are the psychological researchers impressed by his work in that area; in fact, the criticism from them seem similar. (Somewhere between dishonest and Gould being the Newton of straw man attacks.)
The majority of the world's evol biologists and intelligence researchers might be idiots (or in a conspiracy), of course...
Or Gould might have been an idealist with a finished answer about some things, looking to get them confirmed. The only thing we know about the world is that we don't know what we will find -- and as a corollary, it won't be what we expected or wanted. There are so many more ways to be wrong than to be right, so if you have the answer ready before looking, you are certain to be wrong.
Sigh, not more dialectical things, I hope?
on
Shapes of Time
·
· Score: 2, Informative
To see where the reviewer, and most modern criticism against evolutionary biology, comes from -- see
The Dialectical Biologist.
I stopped reading the popular criticism after coming to the opinion that there are two different religions that have dogmatic problems with evolution -- Xians/Muslims and Marxists.
I think I understand why the Xians have problems accepting that some (tendencies to) behavior are built into humans. I never read up enough on Marxism to understand their problem. I leave that to people with more religious needs.
And also a bit like evolutionism where where all regligious authorities and believers have to be idiots or in a conspiracy, because the Bible can not possibly be right.
The first problem with that stupid argument is that not all "regligious authorities" claim that the bible is right...
(Not even the majority of Xians outside of the bible belt claim all details in the bible are correct!)
Regarding the intelligence of religious people and authorities, I think your comment answered that, if nothing else...
But you need to realize that there is no single definition of "intelligence" neither is there any way to really measure it.
Without being even a layman, I know that modern intelligent researchers address those obvious points. My thesis is that the criticism is doing a trivial straw man attack.
The consensus of the active researchers in the field might be wrong, of course, but you are contradicting the researchers in a way that seems to assume they are fools that don't know about the scientific method.
A bit like creationism where all paleontologists and evolutionary biologists have to be idiots or in a conspiracy to hide the truth.
I didn't discuss understanding, I discussed the argument that there might not be anything driving increased computing needs.
My point was that there are already coming autonomous systems in military, toys, space, rescue (and "even" industrial) applications. The computers in those applications will need more speed to understand their various sensors.
Interaction with the real world is a "new" application area that will be worth a lot of money (even before cleaning robots) -- that might drive the investments needed to keep Moore's law going, if nothing else will.
I have no idea how good Kurzweil's predictions are. He seems optimistic. I didn't address that -- just one little argument.
Well, support of software development by more computer power is maybe uncertain.
But needs for more computer power is not uncertain. It's just about now computers are beginning to be able to see and hear -- and understand anything. Not to mention serious robotics.
That should drive computing needs for quite a while.
On the other hand, with this paradigm, there is the *risk* that the government starts displacing companies by releasing a free product.
A good point, but consider the present case.
The main company getting hurt by free groupware is convicted for criminal behaviour. For being a monopolist!
Since Microsoft seems to have bought off the Bush administration to get a mild slap on the wrist for it's crimes, I find it quite fitting when free software are developed by a state to compete with their products...
C S Lewis [...] Don't let the fact that he's probably one of the most convincing Christian authors of modern times get in your way.
Offtopic, but C S Lewis is a pet peeve...
As an atheist I looked for good theist arguments to see if my arguments hold water. I was going to read Lewis, but Mere Assertions removed my interest.
I also read from his (one of?) biography. Not impressed with his analytical reasoning. My attempts to find good theist arguments have made me a bit of a misanthrope. ("Is that the best they can do!? A majority of people are able to base their world view on such pathetic excuses!? It's sick!")
I read Narnia as a kid and didn't mind. Children literature may be more suited to his talents. I don't know enough about that genre (anymore) to have a serious opinion.
Wouldn't it be cool if [... bots in games] could also become smarter? Two identical systems might run entirely differently
One other comment said that games are already varying their behaviour a bit.
How about if a game running on a computer communicated it's evolved behaviours to a central which used other running games to test the behaviours?
Individually identify players (credit card to get new intelligent behaviour), so sent out strategems can be ranked after how good they work with different skill levels (and age, etc) of players.
Let the players tell the game how enjoyable a game session was, so the evolved behaviours were selected for more than point-scoring.
The one group getting most from this would be sf-authors:
Games (Sims, etc) seems to be getting more complex and closer to reality. A few generations of algorithms evolving to compete with people in an almost real world -- and we have AIs groomed to take over!:-)
The Orwellian possibilites are obvious -- big databases of ID:ed people and their preferences in relation to the preferences of lots of other people.
I recently read a book by Robert Zubrin (of Mars society, etc), "Entering Space", published 1999. He's quite a serious aerospace engineer.
He argued that since bacteria are so radiation resistant, and that impacts would have thrown rocks away from Earth, after any sterilization Earth would have been reseeded by bacteria thrown out by asteroid impacts! There should have been serious selection for rad tolerance among bacteria in the early solar system...
Also, he argued, with gravity sling effects from the big planets of the solar systems, rocks containing bacteria could have reached other solar systems before being sterilized... If other solar systems had relevant planets, Earth's bacteria could have infected/colonized the whole galaxy!
But, almost certainly, if so -- then Earth was itself seeded from bacteria from other stars. DNA might be standardized across the whole or most of the galaxy. (-: Pity future exo-biochemists -- what a boring universe!:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Forward is the worst author I happily buy books in hardcover from. :-)
"Gouldists" stop discussing when you ask why the who's-who in evolutionary biology considers Gould's public writing to "quite conspicuously misrepresent the views of [biology's] leading spokesmen", as Ernst Mayr put it.
It irritates me that I spent time building an opinion on this subject a few years ago; "Gouldism" seems to be just YACC (Here: Yet Another Crackpot Cult).
At least this inspired me to a signature.
(I clicked "Submit" instead of "Preview" in the previous message. Sorry if it was hard to read.)
Do the critics of Gould's popular writing really include Mayr, Maynard Smith, George Williams, Hamilton, Wilson, Trives, etc?
And if the list is that long, what are you surprised by where I'm coming from!?
(-: At least Mayr, Maynard Smith and Wilson should have more cred than Gould and Dawkins have together!? :-).
For my information, is it really true that Gould really dropped all references about brain size from the first and second edition of "mismeasured"? Without mentioning that his basic arguments from the first book had been proven wrong?
OK, Gould claims (in his popular writing) that evolutionary biologists ignore alternatives to selection for changing gene frequency. Despite genetic drift being accepted for decades.
Gould (and you echo that, in a book review on your site) claim that Dawkins ignore any possibility of higher-level evolution. In "The extended phenotype" Dawkins expressly discusses the subject of species evolution (he expresses doubt on how much "work" can be done on multiple coworking parameters). Also, 1989 he wrote a paper titled "The evolution of evolvability." (C. Langton (Eds.), Artificial Life. Santa Fe: Addison Wesley). I haven't read the paper, but the title doesn't paint a picture of Dawkins as someone as fixed in opinion as Gould portrays...
So, I'm staring too much on e.g. the obvious straw man attacks in Gould's popular writing? You are arguing that he is dependable when not discussing anything having implications for human evolution and behaviour?
What is that U.S. legal term for "as in small things, so too in big"? I read these subjects as a hobby; I concentrate on people with intellectual integrity since I just don't have the time for the primary literature.
Well, it seems few (non-marxist) evolutionary biologists consider Gould's writing on alternatives in evolution to be interesting. And neither are the psychological researchers impressed by his work in that area; in fact, the criticism from them seem similar. (Somewhere between dishonest and Gould being the Newton of straw man attacks.)
The majority of the world's evol biologists and intelligence researchers might be idiots (or in a conspiracy), of course...
Or Gould might have been an idealist with a finished answer about some things, looking to get them confirmed. The only thing we know about the world is that we don't know what we will find -- and as a corollary, it won't be what we expected or wanted. There are so many more ways to be wrong than to be right, so if you have the answer ready before looking, you are certain to be wrong.
To see where the reviewer, and most modern criticism against evolutionary biology, comes from -- see The Dialectical Biologist.
I stopped reading the popular criticism after coming to the opinion that there are two different religions that have dogmatic problems with evolution -- Xians/Muslims and Marxists.
I think I understand why the Xians have problems accepting that some (tendencies to) behavior are built into humans. I never read up enough on Marxism to understand their problem. I leave that to people with more religious needs.
Damn, I never have mod points when I see something I want to mod up. :-(
If disk trashing gets high, turn "down" fairness? (Say, swapping out whole processes to disk for a few seconds?)
Too complex? Would that lose badly in some situations?
About Mother Theresa's integrity and morale, see e.g. this or this...
Not that much karma to lose, anyhow! :-)
The first problem with that stupid argument is that not all "regligious authorities" claim that the bible is right...
(Not even the majority of Xians outside of the bible belt claim all details in the bible are correct!)
Regarding the intelligence of religious people and authorities, I think your comment answered that, if nothing else...
Without being even a layman, I know that modern intelligent researchers address those obvious points. My thesis is that the criticism is doing a trivial straw man attack.
The consensus of the active researchers in the field might be wrong, of course, but you are contradicting the researchers in a way that seems to assume they are fools that don't know about the scientific method.
A bit like creationism where all paleontologists and evolutionary biologists have to be idiots or in a conspiracy to hide the truth.
I'm sorry, but my bogosity counter went off.
As long as it's not illegal (and/or nepotism and/or misuse of public funds), what is the problem?
I just don't get it.
I didn't discuss understanding, I discussed the argument that there might not be anything driving increased computing needs.
My point was that there are already coming autonomous systems in military, toys, space, rescue (and "even" industrial) applications. The computers in those applications will need more speed to understand their various sensors.
Interaction with the real world is a "new" application area that will be worth a lot of money (even before cleaning robots) -- that might drive the investments needed to keep Moore's law going, if nothing else will.
I have no idea how good Kurzweil's predictions are. He seems optimistic. I didn't address that -- just one little argument.
Clear enough?
But needs for more computer power is not uncertain. It's just about now computers are beginning to be able to see and hear -- and understand anything. Not to mention serious robotics.
That should drive computing needs for quite a while.
If a lot of strong beta emitters were ground up and made into dust, would they be dangerous?
(Doesn't Voyager and all other longterm probes to the outer solar system use beta emitter batteries?)
A good point, but consider the present case.
The main company getting hurt by free groupware is convicted for criminal behaviour. For being a monopolist!
Since Microsoft seems to have bought off the Bush administration to get a mild slap on the wrist for it's crimes, I find it quite fitting when free software are developed by a state to compete with their products...
Offtopic, but C S Lewis is a pet peeve...
As an atheist I looked for good theist arguments to see if my arguments hold water. I was going to read Lewis, but Mere Assertions removed my interest.
I also read from his (one of?) biography. Not impressed with his analytical reasoning. My attempts to find good theist arguments have made me a bit of a misanthrope. ("Is that the best they can do!? A majority of people are able to base their world view on such pathetic excuses!? It's sick!")
I read Narnia as a kid and didn't mind. Children literature may be more suited to his talents. I don't know enough about that genre (anymore) to have a serious opinion.
One other comment said that games are already varying their behaviour a bit.
How about if a game running on a computer communicated it's evolved behaviours to a central which used other running games to test the behaviours?
Individually identify players (credit card to get new intelligent behaviour), so sent out strategems can be ranked after how good they work with different skill levels (and age, etc) of players.
Let the players tell the game how enjoyable a game session was, so the evolved behaviours were selected for more than point-scoring.
The one group getting most from this would be sf-authors:
He argued that since bacteria are so radiation resistant, and that impacts would have thrown rocks away from Earth, after any sterilization Earth would have been reseeded by bacteria thrown out by asteroid impacts! There should have been serious selection for rad tolerance among bacteria in the early solar system...
Also, he argued, with gravity sling effects from the big planets of the solar systems, rocks containing bacteria could have reached other solar systems before being sterilized... If other solar systems had relevant planets, Earth's bacteria could have infected/colonized the whole galaxy!
But, almost certainly, if so -- then Earth was itself seeded from bacteria from other stars. DNA might be standardized across the whole or most of the galaxy. (-: Pity future exo-biochemists -- what a boring universe! :-)
Why isn't Lightcraft Technologies discussed here?
Look in Google groups after e.g. 'Leik Myrabo' or 'lightcraft'.
It seems they never got enough money to get off the ground. :-(