The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins: Review | Blogitem

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Shaun Johnston:
In modern times we've made two revolutionary discoveries. One is, how changes in physical matter can be accounted for in terms of physical laws that can predict precisely what will happen next. Having given rise to science (how this can be studied) and industry (how it can be applied) this revolution is well under way.

The second revolution is, how emergence of species of living creatures can be accounted for in terms of them evolving from one another. This revolution, despite its promise of how much it could tell us about ourselves, remains stillborn through the mistaken application to it of principles coming out of the first revolution--reductive physicalism.

For this second revolution to advance it should be taken from under the wing of science and studied on its own terms. Tip: one recent product of evolution is creatures with minds. Minds are better studied through methods of the humanities than through those of science. Tell me, does this interest you?

"The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins: Review

Details: Written by Shaun Johnston Shaun Johnston; Published: December 19, 2015 December 19, 2015; Hits: 2666 2666

Dawkins' insight can be summed up in two new terms—replicators, and vehicles. “Replicator” stands for are whatever it is natural selection works on to drive evolution. Vehicles are whatever the replicators reside in. Us, for example. In a single generation what natural selection selects for is the more successful individuals, but over vast numbers of generations it is the replicators within us, that account for our success, that natural selection picks out and judges for success in replicating.

Does Dawkins make a value-judgment between replicators and vehicles? “…when you are actually challenged to think of pre-Darwinian answers to the questions ‘What is man?’ ‘Is there a meaning to life?’ ‘What are we for?’, can you, as a matter of fact, think of any that are not now worthless except for their (considerable) historic interest? There is such a thing as being just plain wrong, and that is what, before 1859, all answers to those questions were…. It requires a deliberate mental effort to turn biology the right way up again, and remind ourselves that the replicators come first, in importance as well as in history…. Their preservation is the ultimate rationale of our existence.” More...