I remember my German lessons from college: Tear of Nature Open window presents Clouds of sparrows, fluttering of heaven Wind blows, my nose is freezin...
The interesting contribution (for me) that Midgley provides in her solid take-down of "Gene the Shellfish" is that social behaviors are mediated by em...
I've looked into the "Darwin Wars", wars in which the Midgley-Dawkins dispute is seen as an important battle. Gould is branded as playing the leading ...
This effect leads to cyclical population growth and decline in prey and predator, as illustrated here: http://www2.nau.edu/lrm22/lessons/predator_prey...
To describe in writing Beethoven's 9th to a completely deaf person so that he would 'hear' it seems indeed impossible. Likewise with explaining the co...
I did find her article enjoyable, witty but a bit too much all over the place. The arguments could have been presented with greater clarity, in sequen...
Indeed, and he is also saying that these ways of speaking are about the behaviors of genes and animals. Hence my objection remains valid: We are left ...
Denial it is... So by your rather peculiar understanding of the English language, he is not talking of animals, human being or genes in that quote.. W...
He says himself it's not metaphoric use. It's some "special meanings" of selfish and altruist that he made up entirely, and that don't work. Genes cou...
You cannot have an altruistic gene if you define it the way he does, evidently. A gene can only replicate itself. It's not like it has the capacity to...
Unless of course one is looking for an excuse. In this case, bringing genes into the conversation is useful, to be able to say "my genes made me do it...
Partly because I find bizarre, convoluted metaphors funny, but also because I believe it is wrong to miseducate lay people with the wrong ideas about ...
I agree. The 'metaphor' means something quite true and oft forgotten: that genes can only replicate themselves. Soooo selfish of them! I can't believe...
Indeed. But we are born survivors, so the better metaphor is: "Gene the Survivor". Now I wonder, who could play the part if it was made in a movie? Vi...
Yes, it's about finding a less negative, less jaundiced, less Thatcherist metaphor, one that more genuinely reflects the scientific data, without all ...
Okay so it means "natural selection works on genes, eliminates the weak ones, and keeps the strong". Fair enough. The Strong Gene, then. Or "Gene the ...
What I understand is that the metaphor of "selfish gene" maps to itself, it has no content, nothing that it is alluding to other than itself. It doesn...
And where is the selfishness coming from? It's in the eye of the beholder. A better metaphor would be: alleles that survived were historically better ...
As an illustration of her verve (about memes): Now, to be fair, the memes of dances did come down from their platonic realm onto the puffins too. I do...
Interesting... What pedagogic power, may I ask? She makes a series of points, to be fair. One is that indeed Dawkins is ambiguous on the metaphor thin...
Her point -- and I think it is correct -- is precisely that it is NOT a useful metaphor. That a better metaphor would be that the genes are strong (i....
I think you are correct that it was part of the zeitgeist. It was certainly central to Midgley's beef. She called Dawkins' theory "biological Thatcher...
I'm reading her wikipedia entry and the Philosophy Now article about her. I like her a lot so far, so thanks for the introduction. She always was a po...
Okay. Well spotted. There's some truth to the point that capitalism has something competitive that fits our nature of competitive animals, as long as ...
The best theory I know is that nice feathers in male birds code for health and fitness, which would be why they are seen as attractive by the ladies i...
It's just an example of how involving the genes brings nothing to the fore. Replace 'rape' with 'selfishness' if you prefer. Did we need Dawkins to te...
That's a good question alright. Some argue that rape fantasies have been genetically selected by our evolutionary history, for instance. E.g. our hist...
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