2015-10-14
252
(1) AM: Ваше вступление в дарвинские войны многих удивило, хотя оно не было таким уж неожиданным. Вы оспариваете положения теории естественного отбора в том же ключе, в котором оспаривали бихевиоризм, не так ли? Что ошибочного вы находите во взглядах тех, кто сейчас безоговорочно поддерживает Дарвина, и почему, по Вашему мнению, его теория имеет недостатки?
(2) Jerry Fodor: That’s easy. Darwinism doesn’t have a mechanism for natural selection; in particular, the ‘theory of natural selection’ doesn’t provide one. That was the main theme of Piatelli and my book What Darwin Got Wrong. Darwin, like Skinner, is a ‘black box’ theorist; both insist that the non-random variables in explanations of biological traits are environmental.In consequence, Darwin is left with the hopeless problem, of (which the ‘linkage’ of traits is a parade example) how environmental variables could account for the effects of a creatures internal organisation in determining its phenotype. Hence the familiar loose talk about ‘Mother Nature’s role in guiding trait selection. Dawkins (among others) keeps assuring us that such talk is metaphorical. But he never does explain how to cash the metaphor. Skinner’s problem is exactly the same, except he’s interested not in innate phenotypes but in acquired ‘behavioral repertoires’.
(3) AM: Мне кажется, публике довольно сложно понять основные Ваши идеи, потому что Ваш стиль чтения лекций довольно сильно отличается от академического, Вы не высказываете формулировок, а даёте слушателям Ваши мысли в их течении. И в Ваших книгах немало метафор, которые не дают окончательных определений, а наводят на некоторые размышления. Конечно, вы не из числа критиков Дарвина от лица креационизма, и всё же не была ли для Вас шоком вся критика, обрушившаяся на Вас и Ваши книги?
(4) J.F.: I wasn’t surprised that the biologists missed the point; for better or worse, evolutionary biology is now a largely statistical science, so it’s practitioners generally don’t think much about the explanatory adequacy of other kinds of empirical theories. But that the philosophers missed the point too struck me as really shocking; contemplating issues about explanatory adequacy is a lot of what they’re supposed to do for a living. It should be kept in mind, however, both in biology and in the philosophy of biology, a lot of careers are built on firm adherence to Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism. So it’s hardly surprising that serious criticism of The Theory of Natural Selection (as distinct from the Creationist kind) provokes spasms. God save us from true believers on either side.
(5) AM: Алекс Розенберг, философ, был, пожалуй, одним из главных Ваших оппонентов, высказавших наиболее обоснованную критику, в отличие от биологов. Что Вы можете сказать по поводу его критики? Кажется, его идеи являются и критикой ассоцианизма. Верно?
(6) J.F.: Alex says (rightly) that selection for or against are contraries, not contradictories. (There are neutral traits as well as adaptive and anti-adaptive ones). I think Alec thinks we miss this logical point in What Darwin Got Wrong, but we didn’t. Since it is tautological that there can’t be selection for or against a neutral trait, it follows that, if there is selection at all, then it is selection for a trait if it isn’t selection against it. Still, let’s assume, for the sake of argument that whiteness wasn’t selected for in polar bears. What, in that case, was selected against? Being pink? Being green with orange stripes? Do Darwinists believe that there used to be green polar bears with orange stripes, but they all got eaten up by predators? If not, what does Alex think is gained by rejecting selection for in favour of selection against?
