RE: Labels and Obfuscations

From: John Edser (edser_at_tpg.com.au)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2005 01:15:34 -0500 (EST)

"Gil Lawton" gillawton@earthlink.net wrote:-

> snip<
> Do we not do greater honor to the
> intellectual giants onto whose
> shoulders we would climb if we
> take great care to explain ourselves
> clearly as we drop the labels that
> were their names and the names
> given to their contributions. And
> do we not show proper respect for
> them only by making certain we
> misrepresent them accurately, and
> make clear where our own ideas
> depart from theirs, and serve
> our own agendas.

JE:-
I agree that changing labels or adding
new ones without carefully examining how
the old fits into the new while at all times
maintaining at the very least, just one
refutable theory of nature must be done
with great care. My argument is that the common
misuse of simplified/over simplified mathematical
models of refutable theory to contest the theory
they were simplified from simply ignores this a duty
of care. My chosen example is Hamilton's Rule.
It's consistent misuse has sidelined the key
concept of Darwinian fitness mutualisation for
over 50 years. Had Popper's epistemology been
adhered to, these events would never have
happened and the science of Evolutionary
Biology would be further ahead than it
is today.

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

PO Box 266
Church Pt
NSW 2105
Australia

edser@tpg.com.au