Re: New Gould Collection Coming Out


"catshark" <catshark101@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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observa wrote:
"catshark" <catshark@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Maybe I'm just not paying attention but there is a new collection of
Stephen Jay Gould's work compiled by Steven Rose and Paul McGarr
coming
out
that I was unaware of:

THE RICHNESS OF LIFE
by Stephen Jay Gould

<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-2197721,00.html>

Given the nasty stuff Rose directed at E.O.Wilson, Dawkins and Pinker

You mean worse than what Gould said about Wilson, Dawkins and Pinker?


Both I guess. Both of them, and Lewontin, were guilty of similar
misrepreseantation and quote mining the Cretinists are guilty of. A while
ago I read several books that were either written, or edited, by Rose and
Lewontin. And since then I've read many of the originals they were opposed
to. Very often they simply deliberatly misquote, or take things out of
context. They clearly have a political agenda and need the blank slate to
continue justifying it.
I very
much doubt that any collection he selects will be worth a hell of a lot.

Well, I would have thought that would hang more on what you think of
Gould than on what you think of Rose, but . . .

Well, as a historian before I was anything else, _what_ is selected usually
is a result of the selector's biases. And the combined result of such
selection can be such as to support the selector's preferences.


Other than support his political agenda that is.

Having just finished reading Pinker's "The Blank Slate", I can't see
how Rose could be alone in that regard.

Hmm, well I've read The Blank Slate twice, and am currently reading How the
Mind Works. I do note that Pinker's, and other evolutionary/cognitive
scientists appear to have opened doors for further research. And also
appear to base their findings on duplicable research. In other words there
appears to be a cummulative research history. That does not appear to be
the case for research based on the the blank slate assumption.

As an ex-teacher I had to wade my way thru stuff on pedagogy based on the
blank slate assumption. None of it was any use in the classroom. Have you
read Judith Rich Harris's The Nurture Assumption?

I'd be curious to know what your position is on the evolutionary sociology
stuff.

Alan Jeffery

--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------

Consistency we should expect of philosophies,
but perhaps not of philosophers.

- Neal C. Gillespie -



.

Relevant Pages

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