Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings (The classical Darwinist account of evolution is in trouble)

London Review of Books ^ | 10/18/2007 | Jerry Fodor

[SirLinksalot]

Jerry Alan Fodor (born 1935) is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist currently teaching at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He is the author of many works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science in which he laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, among other ideas.

Massimo Piattelli-Palamarini is professor of Linguistics & Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona whose field of study include Cognitive Science, language and mind, biological foundations of language and language evolution.

[Borges]

But for once Nietzsche is nowhere in sight

He's nowhere in sight in Wagner's other operas either which predated Nietzsche's writing.

[jbp1]

“So what’s the moral of all this? Most immediately, it’s that the classical Darwinist account of evolution as primarily driven by natural selection is in trouble on both conceptual and empirical grounds.”

blah blah blah .... WRONG..... enough already

things evolve, the better ones win, so please just get over it

[Eastbound]

"With the Hopes that our World is built on
they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton;
they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses;
they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market
Who promised these beautiful things.

("Gods of the Copybook Headings" -- R. Kipling)

[mysterio]

The classical Darwinist account of evolution is in trouble

No, not really.

[JMJJR]

But, but, but

[wideawake]

True. Wagner and Nietzsche were only close from 1871-1876: the only opera that Wagner did any serious work on while he knew Nietzsche was Parsifal - which Nietasche hated and which is pretty opposed to Nietzsche whole worldview.

Wagner's other great works: The Ring, Tristan, Tannhaeuser, Lohengrin, Meistersinger, etc. were almost all written and composed by 1870.

Nietzsche met Wagner briefly in 1868. He didn't begin hanging around the Wagner household until 1871 and he didn't become famous himself until 1883 - five years before he entered the laughing academy and seven years after he broke with Wagner.

I doubt Nietzsche had any effect whatever on Wagner's work.

[Borges]

Schopenhauer was an influence. Ironic considering the glooomy philosopher routinely cheered himself up by playing Rossini arias on his flute.

[SteveMcKing]

Yeah, but God made them evolve. He’s responsible for strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, and electromagnetism.

ID-ers already know this, they just don’t explain it because you and I wouldn’t understand (since we were wrong about that stupid “round earth” theory, heliocentric planetary systems, and the germ theory of disease in lieu of miasmas or witchcraft).

[SteveMcKing]

Pigasus Award

[JMJJR]

Cool, thanks for the link !

[Soliton]

Natural selection doesn’t select FOR it discriminates AGAINST.

Arches without spandrels would collapse (gravity being the natural selector). Arches with spandrels would survive. If they could breed, we would be swimming in spandrelled arches.

Any phenotype that wasn’t involved with spandrelism would be passed on regardless of its utility or lack thereof, if and until, it was selected against by a future selector.

God bless Darwin.

[Greg F]

I think the writer was saying that this was a soft opera, not Valkyries or Odin, and no hint of superman etc. . . .

[Greg F]

I wonder if anyone read this article that is attacking it. It was hard to get through because of poor writing but seems to make sense as far as its main point goes.

[citizenmike]

I wonder if anyone read this article that is attacking it

I read it and it does not make sense. It seems that the author doesn't understand that multiple traits can come from the same chromosome. If an important trait is selected (for or against) then the other traits "come along for the ride". Nothing mysterious about this.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

I would make a detailed explication of the article but it’s Monday and I need to get out and hunt and gather.

[Greg F]

Nothing mysterious, but his argument is that those traits are not selected at all. Floppy ears, curly tail, just there, no survival advantage at all, just along for the ride. So all the B.S. from pschological darwinists and so forth is exactly that . . .

[r9etb]

Jerry Fodor is collaborating with Massimo Piattelli-Palamarini on a book about evolution without adaptation.

To put it cynically, that's probably the most explanatory line in the whole piece.

The problem I have with Fodor's discussion is that it's still stuck on a one-to-one correlation between "A Gene" and "A Trait," and other stuff can be explained away as a "free rider."

But if I read the articles properly, the Human Genome project has recently begun developing evidence to suggest that there is information above the level of genes, and information shared between genes.

Based on your handy post of Fodor's (and his partner's) bio, perhaps he's simply not up enough on current findings. At any rate, his dismissal of "adaptationism" as too simplistic seems a bit ironic, given his own discussion here.

[RightWhale]

• The answers that have been suggested so far have not been convincing.

  It's tough to answer a question that has not been properly asked. Once the question is right, it answers itself. So, what is the question?

[B-Chan]

Meistersinger is my favorite of Wagner's. BOM bah-bohmmmm...buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh... how could such an awful human being make such lovely music?