Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 09:38:56 -0600
Subject: Re: TREE - reply to Terry's of 4-19, part 2 -Reply -Reply


>>> Terrence  Mc Donough <TERRENCE.MCDONOUGH-AT-UCG.IE>  5/22/96, 
The flying pigs example was used by Richard Dawkins in a newspaper 
interview.  It stems from a popular expression of skepticism "and 
pigs might fly!"  Dawkins was deliberately using this unlikely 
example to emphasize a strong version of the adaptationist position.
----

Do you or Dawkins think that Dawkins is an "adaptationist" ?

What I've seen of that term is that it is often used in an
unnecessarily polarized debate that's been going on for about 20
years now.

The vulgar adaptationism that proper evolutionists do _not_ hold is
the notion that everything must be "adaptive" in the sense of
conferring some advantage, or else it wouldn't be here or in exactly
that form.  This is not what I intend to advocate at all.

It seems much the same as what some people say about societies /
cultures, which I also don't care for.  "If it didn't serve its own
perpetuation, it wouldn't be here, and any other variations that
might have existed must have become extinct."

In a superficial way, this is true.  It just seems a long way from
understanding what is going on, what are the processes that shape
these things, whether morphology, behavior or culture.  If analysis
doesn't go much deeper, it just sounds like Pangloss.

You know what I mean?

Lisa


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