Re: sci.bio.evolution mailing list

dk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (DK) wrote:-

JE:-
Please choose between
nature or just man judging and then throwing out theories OR provide a
REASONABLE alternative to either. An example of an utterly UNREASONABLE
alternative is today's hopeless Post Modernism (which was and remains
based on a misuse of mathematics) which dispensed with any objective
judgment allowing politics to replace the sciences, i.e. lets just all
sit around and decide by consensus what is and what is not, the truth..
Okay - *at least* in the sense that there is (or, at least, has been) too
much 'genes-for-this-or-that-ism' around.

JE:_
I agree that the above misused, polycentic model presents an excellent
example of Post Modernistic "science" i.e. a proposed "science" which
cannot be tested to refutation, only because it provides _no constant
fitness frame of reference_(Galileo must be turning in his grave). It
was and remains senseless (except within mathematics which I repeat, is
not a science) to suggest that the same unit of selection can have more
than just the one fitness maximand within a rational evolutionary
theory. However, that was not my point. What we are attempting to
discuss here, i.e. not just evade, is exactly how critical to the
sciences in general is Popper's concept falsifiability? I state _without
reservation_ that any non refutable proposition cannot even be
understood. IOW, I cannot make my position any clearer than that.

Read a little Feyerabend. He skillfully shows how all the Popperism
is nothing but a wishful hot summer night dream. In real life, anything
goes and most everything is eventually settled by convention/
argument from authority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Feyerabend

JE:-
I am stunned and amazed that an intelligent person would even consider
writing the above. The destructive, negative cynicism of Paul Feyerabend
knows no bounds. Unhealthy cynicism is not skepticism, rhetoric is not
criticism and more importantly, not one single negative proposition can
exist without its respective positive proposition. Unlike mathematics,
_reason does not provide equal weight to negative and positive
propositions_.


Again, I draw your attention to Galileo's most basic contribution to the
epistemology of science which_has not changed since the mid 1600's_:
without a falsifiable frame of reference all you are doing is talking
through a political hat.

Feyerabend commented on the Galileo affair as follows:

"The church at the time of Galileo was much more faithful to reason than
Galileo himself, and also took into consideration the ethical and social
consequences of Galileo's doctrine. Its verdict against Galileo was
rational and just, and revisionism can be legitimized solely for motives
of political opportunism."

(please see your own reference)


Feyerabend's amazing evasive ability reminded me of J.B.S. Haldane (the
creator of polycentric organism fitness altruism who just happened to be
a communist) obscene endorsement of Stalin in the 1950's....

Regards,

John Edser
Independent Researcher

edser@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx











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Relevant Pages

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