Posted on 01/04/2006 7:33:35 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
Just as evolution through natural selection simply is the state of biological nature. Precisely the author's point.
Strange, God seems to have imprinted that "economic nature" on all primates.
GMTA.
In Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard Evolutionist, on page 66 he states " In fact, I believe that the theory of natural selection should be viewed as an extended analogy-whether concious or unconcious on Darwin's part I do not know- to the laissez faire economics of Adam Smith."
Thanks for posting that. I wasn't aware of it.
Yes Luke this is yoda. The good new is I insure with USAA and am not claiming any monkeys in my rise from obscurity.
"In Panda's Thumb by Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard Evolutionist, on page 66 he states " In fact, I believe that the theory of natural selection should be viewed as an extended analogy-whether concious or unconcious on Darwin's part I do not know- to the laissez faire economics of Adam Smith.""
Goes to show you how confused Gould is along with the author of the original article of this thread.
First of all, actors in the free market usually have a long-term business plan. Do organisms have such a plan?
Secondly, "competition" in economics is fundamentally different than competition in nature. To be successful economically, a company must fill a need for a customer. Which "customer" does a lion serve when he "competes" with a zebra?
The whole notion that laissez-faire economics is comparable to free-market economics is obvious baloney. The idea of free-markets is not anarchy. The idea behind it is that the participants posess the "intelligence," hence centralized "intelligence" or planning is unnecessary and often harmful.
Someone around here is confused, that's for sure.
First of all, actors in the free market usually have a long-term business plan. Do organisms have such a plan?
The players in a free market are analogous to individuals in the biosphere. Companies have business plans (some of them, anyway), and individual creatures have their motivations. However, what's missing here -- as both Gould and Smith understood -- is an overall planner. In a free market, there is no Stalin or Hillary who puts out a 5-year plan, and who must approve all exceptions. And in the biosphere, there is no "designer" who is orchestrating the whole shebang.
Secondly, "competition" in economics is fundamentally different than competition in nature.
They're not fundamentally different at all. That's why the Gould-Smith analogy is such a compelling one.
To be successful economically, a company must fill a need for a customer.
Yes, we know. And it must do so with the limited resources available, and in a competitive environment, and it must behave so as to remain in business, etc. The whole free-market/evolution analogy.
Which "customer" does a lion serve when he "competes" with a zebra?
Are you really as confused as your question indicates?
The whole notion that laissez-faire economics is comparable to free-market economics is obvious baloney.
Yes, you really are confused.
The idea of free-markets is not anarchy.
Right. And to continue with the Gould-Smith analogy, evolution is a process that is governed by natural law.
The idea behind it [free-market economics] is that the participants possess the "intelligence," hence centralized "intelligence" or planning is unnecessary and often harmful.
Actually ... no. It's not that the existence of individual intelligence makes the central planning unnecessary. The existence of central planning necessarily suppresses the individual participants' freedom of action -- whether such individual action is intelligent or foolish. And the outcome of a free market situation, like the outcome of the biosphere, is that those who survive will be best suited to do so -- an outcome that cannot be centrally planned.
Nope, but it's a new spin, anyway. We'll just have to completely ignore the blatant fact that the loudest allies of the Darwinists are left wing activists - the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Morris Dees, Barney Frank, etc...
...George Will, Charles Krauthammer, John Derbyshire...
I liked the article you posted, though. I thought it was just those hippy bonobos, but apparently capuchins do it too.
Pennsylvania . . . Gov. Rendell backs evolution...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1494223/posts
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1520711/posts
When my dog hears the dog food bag rustle, he comes over expecting food. Sometimes, he'll retrieve a stick and expect a dog treat in return.
When my dog starts trading dog treats with other dogs, I'll be impressed.
Evidence of design is everywhere in "the biosphere." So the assumption that no "orchestrating designer" exist is a baseless a priori assumption.
Like marriage, buying and selling is as old as recorded human history. No one argues whether marriage and trade existed thousands of years ago. Evolution isn't in the same category, to put it charitably.
As will I.
But then I'd be impressed if you knew the difference between simian and canine.
Seen any simians engaging in buying and selling?
Dubner and Levitt then continue with what is almost certainly the most illuminating anecdote with respect to the capuchins’ understanding of money. “Something else happened during that chaotic scene [of the bank heist], something that convinced Chen of the monkeys’ true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkeys’ cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token for a grape.” Prudishly, and perhaps incuriously, Chen has taken measures to assure no repetition of the incident. “It wouldn’t reflect well on anyone involved if the money turned the lab into a brothel,” write Dubner and Levitt.
Actually, evolution is in precisely the same category as the market, as far as historical understanding goes. A cadre of ideologues believe that creatures just got here as they are and did not change since, just as a cadre of ideologues believe that ancient people lived in a socialistic utopia in harmony with the earth until a bunch of dead white males ruined everything.
I don't recall any ancient documents referring to observations of the evolutionary process, whereas there are numerous ancient references to marketplaces.
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