Re: popper, deutsch, dawkins and darwin

On 27 Feb 2013, at 21:18, hibbsa <hibbsa-/[email protected]> wrote:

> --- In [email protected], David Deutsch <david.deutsch@...> wrote:
>> 
>> I think that Dawkins underrates the size of his >own contribution. It is true that the theory itself had been there >for a considerable time before he wrote The Selfish Gene and was not >due to him. But that is like saying that the inverse-square force >law of gravity had been there for a considerable time before Newton >published his version. Or that Hilbert had written down Einstein's >equations before Einstein did. There's postulating a theory, and >then there's understanding it. Neo-Darwinism (the 'selfish gene >theory') is quite easy to state as a factual theory but quite hard >to 'get' as an explanatory theory. A token of that is, for instance, >that Steven Jay Gould, who was very knowledgable and interested in >the matter, never got it. And recently, it turned out that nor had >E.O. Wilson, whom everyone had regarded as one of its most prominent >advocates.

[...]
> 
> I agree Dawkins is probably too modest (though I believe him and don't think it's an affectation). Even so...with that about him, and knowing the other things about you, I still couldn't make sense of your choice of him except as your having not known (at the time) about the history of the gene-centric view. Which didn't feel like a criticism of you since you have been clear that specific history of ideas isn't of itself of great importance.

In this regard I recommend Dawkins' book The Extended Phenotype. Not only because it illustrates the great explanatory depth I was referring to (not just "it's the genes, guys, not the organisms or the species!"), but also because it's just fascinating.
> 
> The reason I think an accurate history of ideas formation is important is not so much on the level of 'credit where credit due' sort of thinking, but because I think that how things come about, can be an important feature of what they are. Also, there is the possibility that if we could 'map' the progression of ideas really accurately, it is possible that regularities may reveal themselves, which would presumably be useful to an understanding of what science is, at least at a certain level of detail (thinking again of how the same explanation can re-cur on multiple levels of abstraction...from your 'reality of abstraction' chapter).

That could well be.

-- David Deutsch