Jamal

That last one looks like a good contender.

The question is why the existing empirical evidence doesn't satisfy you. I mean, considering the fact that significant work and thought have gone into...

I see that direction in evolution has come up, as supposedly being inconsistent with Darwinian theory and supportive of Lamarck. I'll let others argue...

Looks good, but I can't find an accessible copy of it.

Yes, and Darwin liked the term so much he started using it himself. These days I think it's more apt to mislead.

Good idea. I don't think it's blatantly obvious at all. In the context of genetic mutation it means that whether a mutation is beneficial or not does ...

Firstly, of course you're right that selective breeding results in phenotypic changes that are non-random, because which ones survive depends on decis...

Perhaps a combined reading with The Art of the Deal? ;)

Et voila: http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/15327

Time for a financial report. Cost of site to run: $49/month Current PayPal balance: $108 Subscriptions for $5/month: 3 Subscriptions for $10/quarter: ...

Yes that's pretty much the idea. Now we're left with your claim that the analogy with selective breeding is very poor, and your claim that natural sel...

Even if people did know about these, it doesn't amount to the concept of natural selection. So I see no basis here at all. The advance is natural sele...

If you think the basic idea of natural selection was obvious and unoriginal, then I'm not surprised you think Darwin is overrated. But you're simply w...

Here: You're contrasting physiological changes that occur in nature with those that occur in selective breeding. You say the former are "produced by r...

Thanks for clarifying John (though I think you might be conflating the two concepts yet again in your last sentence). I agree it's important to keep i...

Here you bring up the contrast, not between the directedness of selective breeding and the blind process of natural selection, but between the directe...

But to answer your direct question: the analogy shows us that the traits that come to define species do so because the bearers of those traits survive...

I have to pull you up on this John. You made a bad mistake in your last post, irrelevantly contrasting the randomness of mutations with the directedne...

I attempted it.

No, the analogy does not fail, because while the mutations themselves may appear randomly, those which bestow advantages do so owing to the conditions...

Yes, but the analogy takes account of that. Whereas the selection of the traits you want in your pigeons is deliberate, the selection that drives evol...

This. But I think @"Wosret"'s picked up on something in the air. If heroes give every regular everybody something to live up to, then some will fail, ...

Yes I agree it's an ontological difference, because I think to be human is to be historical. But of course you're right to point out that I'm reluctan...

Not to derail the discussion, but why do you think selective breeding is a very poor analogy?

I think the problem is encapsulated by the title of this discussion. "Regarding intellectual capacity: Are animals just lower on a continuum, or a dis...

Yes, Michael could have been talking about Kant when he said...

Since your description of the scholastic conception of objects and the objective looks a lot like Kant's result in the CPR, he probably wasn't guilty ...

By the way, if you just see a "Thank You" page when you follow that link, then the system thinks you're already a subscriber. This is probably because...

4th on google.com and 3rd on google.fr.

I've added the ignore thing to the latest list of like-to-haves. It turns out I already asked them for it, back in November. I'll ask again, but I'll ...

Again, I don't want to indulge in name-calling, but I really have to say it: you can hardly get more traditionally conservative than this. In particul...

I just noticed that Andy Shaw has since written another of his handy guides: A handy guide to the Greens for the under 10s I've a feeling this one may...

Yeah, I really like the whole notification system in general.

But some think that despite the shallowness of classical liberalism and its self-serving focus on property and formal freedoms, its emancipatory poten...

But there are those on the Left, such us many Marxists, who do not accept identity politics either. I guess you would then say they're conservative, I...

I know a lot of left-wing people and read a lot of left-wing journals and stuff, and although the piece is a caricature of a certain type of left-wing...

No. Seems like a reasonable thing to ask the developers for though. They've implemented a few of the things we asked for before.

You wouldn't be able to post if you weren't signed in, so I'm still confused about what your problem is. To sign out you click on "Sign out". It's dow...

The thought that some people are still using IE6 keeps me awake at night, so I try to ignore it.

Whether it's the computer or the local network, I wouldn't know, but my first thought is that it's a browser issue. Is it an old browser? Either way t...

It seems we have MathJax integration now, although as far as I can see it doesn't kick in till you refresh the page after posting.

$$x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}.$$

Cool. Trying to rustle up some enthusiasm first. The more people the better. And after scanning the Anscombe I've kind of gone off it. I'd like to do ...

I'm having a hard time interpreting your comment, nA. Are you saying you can't log in from one of the computers or devices that you normally use? I've...

It's about time we had a reading. I've looked through this discussion and chosen three that appeal to me and which I haven't read: Peter Sloterdijk - ...

Yes there's that too. I guess you're right. Personally, I'd use hotels more often if there were an equally good web site/app, and if I could trust the...

One thing I don't like about Airbnb is that many owners don't seem to know how to use the system. I was travelling with my business partner, who is a ...

Sorry about that Cicero. By all means indulge yourself here in the Shoutbox.

Wow, you're doing satire, right?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/conspiracy_theories.png