Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Dawkins dogma

"THE notion of the "selfish gene" is the most successful scientific metaphor of the past 30 years, followed not far behind by "the extended phenotype". Both were coined by Richard Dawkins and are, as it happens, the titles of his first popular science books."

"For reasons to do with how science is communicated, a human love of simple narratives, and Dawkins' energetic advocacy of these metaphors, the public has been left with a view of evolution and Darwinism which does not truly reflect thinking among evolutionary biologists. This view also perpetuates the existence of "opposing camps" when there is no need. Worse, it skews popular notions of Darwinism. This is why these metaphors are so important: metaphors stretch to the heart of "what science is for" and to the kind of answers it can provide."
New Scietist

7 comments:

  1. Speaking of selfishness - where has all the money gone? Ask the bank czar -

    "Barofsky will likely be grilled about a controversial tally he published in a report released Monday. The report tallied all federal rescue efforts, including many far beyond Barofsky's realm, at an eye-popping $23.7 trillion."

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  2. Yes, I know "selfish" does not mean selfish

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  3. All but invisible in Latin America a decade ago, China now is building cars in Uruguay, donating a soccer stadium to Costa Rica and lending $10 billion to Brazil's biggest oil company.  It's supplanted the United States to become the biggest trading partner with Brazil, South America's biggest economy.

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  4. Yasmeen was right about the cheap molly ploy. she did say molly will be back on this blog. mercy, this dumb jewish american cow is like glue.

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  5. I can't wait to hear the wingnuts wax hypocritical when Uribe alters the constitution so he can stand for re-election in 2010.

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  6. China does not seem to be missing a beat

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  7. Mara, China is a large global force for good. A new global superpower.

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