“A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.”
Jacques Monod, in On the Molecular Theory of Evolution (1974)
Repost, but i just found it :)
This may be fatally sophomoric, but I really don’t understand what is so particularly hard to understand about the theory of evolution. Differentiation, Inheritance, Mutation, and Fitness produce a feedback loop of increasing Fitness. The particulars of it’s implementation on Earth are far more complicated, but the underlying theory is beautiful in it’s elegance and simplicity.
^Which, BTW, also applies to Rational!Harry. How is your book going? Because we over at ff.net are kinda starving. Your work is dearly missed. People are speculating on you pulling a Wheel Of Time on us :P
As for the quote, ever since I read “A Blind God”, I’ve really noticed how inhuman evolution is. Not intuitive, at all.
^^I suspect you might want to “Taboo Your Words” a little. What does “fitness” mean exactly?
(Recommend not asking Eliezer that question if your intent is to maximize output. It seems to provoke an aversive reaction even if encouragement is intended.)
I understand that I am incorrect, my own self-doubt was not made sufficiently clear. I do not however agree with the fatalism that I perceive in the initial quote. To me it seems to suggest that understanding evolution is impossible. I guess this is not necessarily the appropriate place to look for information on evolutionary theory, but nonetheless I do not agree with the suggestion of unassailability of understanding, if that is what’s going on.
I think that often people believe other things that crowd out the true explanation, so in practice it isn’t applied correctly to real-world phenomena. Then, perhaps they try to reintegrate everything under a unifying theory of “evolution”.
Anthropomorphism, promiscuous teleology, not understanding the level of selection, absolutist ideas about fitness, belief in a certain philosophical type of progress, etc. are culprits.
After all the misconceptions are added, the only work left for evolution is to provide a label for the jumble!
If i asked the question “why did humans form a hibernative monophasic sleep cycle? most people would say because at night we slept in caves and shelter to escape the dark and we evolved to sleep that way” even though that’s not the case with out genes at all. People often attribute things that are entirely behavioral to evolutionary reasons and that’s what i think the quotes trying to illustrate.
Baby’s start out sleeping Polyphasically but soon adapt a natural night/day cycle due to the humans around them (mirror neurons, reinforcement, lighting). Now i dont know if this proposed experiment would-be very feasible or ethical but most people discount it because they “understand” evolution.
I would discount polyphasic sleep as being natural on grounds of my current knowledge of anthropology. As far as I know there are no known human cultures that engage in polyphasic sleep (not counting biphasic sleep). That seems like pretty strong evidence that it isn’t behavioral, it’s physiological, which in turn suggests (but doesn’t guarantee) an evolutionary basis for human sleep patterns. Of course, some amount of human sleep patterns is behavioral, e.g. the siesta.
no known human cultures that engage in polyphasic sleep (not counting biphasic sleep).
Look, our sun forces us into a monophasic pattern because of the day/night cycle that occurs everywhere around the earth but our body’s don’t naturally fall into it. We sleep at night because our brain is wired to sleep when its dark and that’s an evolved mechanism but the behavioral pattern that polyphasic sleep requires isn’t evolved into our system its just a natural response to the natural light patterns of our world . In parts of the world where light comes less often sleeping patterns are different than near the equator as evidenced by biphasic sleepers around the world who follow the Siesta pattern naturally.
It was dangerous, to try and guess at evolutionary psychology if you weren’t a professional evolutionary psychologist; but when Harry had read about the Milgram experiment, the thought had occurred to him that situations like this had probably arisen many times in the ancestral environment, and that most potential ancestors who’d tried to disobey Authority were dead. Or that they had, at least, done less well for themselves than the obedient. People thought themselves good and moral, but when push came to shove, some switch flipped in their brain, and it was suddenly a lot harder to heroically defy Authority than they thought. Even if you could do it, it wouldn’t be easy, it wouldn’t be some effortless display of heroism. You would tremble, your voice would break, you would be afraid; would you be able to defy Authority even then?
Harry blinked, then; because his brain had just made the connection between Milgram’s experiment and what Hermione had done on her first day of Defense class, she’d refused to shoot a fellow student, even when Authority had told her that she must, she had trembled and been afraid but she had still refused. Harry had seen that happen right in front of his own eyes and he still hadn’t made the connection until now...
All i’m saying is that people attribute evolutionary reasons to things that have many separate causes and are unproven because they think they understand it. That’s what both these quotes illustrate as far as i know :)
All i’m saying is that people attribute evolutionary reasons to things that have many separate causes and are unproven because they think they understand it.
I agree, however, reverse stupidity is not intelligence. You say
the behavioral pattern that polyphasic sleep requires isn’t evolved into our system its just a natural response to the natural light patterns of our world
but this seems like an unsubstantiated claim, just as much as people claiming sleep must be an evolved behavior. I agree that sleep is at least partially behavioral, but it’s unclear to me that there isn’t an evolved component. See this blurb from Wikipedia, which suggests that human sleep patterns are not completely dependent on external stimuli.
Discounting other theories unjustifiably, or overusing a particular theory past it’s explanation is one sin. Not understanding a theory is another however. I think that many people who draw such false conclusions still base them on a pretty clear understanding of the core of evolutionary theory, i.e. mutation, gene exchange, selection, reproduction.
I agree with your sentiment, but I find myself constantly reminded by this site that the majority of the world is stupider than we give them credit for.
“A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it.” Jacques Monod, in On the Molecular Theory of Evolution (1974) Repost, but i just found it :)
The same can be said of most biology, particularly stark when contrasted with attitudes to ‘hard’ sciences.
This may be fatally sophomoric, but I really don’t understand what is so particularly hard to understand about the theory of evolution. Differentiation, Inheritance, Mutation, and Fitness produce a feedback loop of increasing Fitness. The particulars of it’s implementation on Earth are far more complicated, but the underlying theory is beautiful in it’s elegance and simplicity.
See, there you’re just confirming the original quote.
^Which, BTW, also applies to Rational!Harry. How is your book going? Because we over at ff.net are kinda starving. Your work is dearly missed. People are speculating on you pulling a Wheel Of Time on us :P
As for the quote, ever since I read “A Blind God”, I’ve really noticed how inhuman evolution is. Not intuitive, at all.
^^I suspect you might want to “Taboo Your Words” a little. What does “fitness” mean exactly?
(Recommend not asking Eliezer that question if your intent is to maximize output. It seems to provoke an aversive reaction even if encouragement is intended.)
Upvoted, but you accidentally duplicated a block of text there.
Ick. Hadn’t noticed.
I understand that I am incorrect, my own self-doubt was not made sufficiently clear. I do not however agree with the fatalism that I perceive in the initial quote. To me it seems to suggest that understanding evolution is impossible. I guess this is not necessarily the appropriate place to look for information on evolutionary theory, but nonetheless I do not agree with the suggestion of unassailability of understanding, if that is what’s going on.
I think that often people believe other things that crowd out the true explanation, so in practice it isn’t applied correctly to real-world phenomena. Then, perhaps they try to reintegrate everything under a unifying theory of “evolution”.
Anthropomorphism, promiscuous teleology, not understanding the level of selection, absolutist ideas about fitness, belief in a certain philosophical type of progress, etc. are culprits.
After all the misconceptions are added, the only work left for evolution is to provide a label for the jumble!
If i asked the question “why did humans form a hibernative monophasic sleep cycle? most people would say because at night we slept in caves and shelter to escape the dark and we evolved to sleep that way” even though that’s not the case with out genes at all. People often attribute things that are entirely behavioral to evolutionary reasons and that’s what i think the quotes trying to illustrate.
Baby’s start out sleeping Polyphasically but soon adapt a natural night/day cycle due to the humans around them (mirror neurons, reinforcement, lighting). Now i dont know if this proposed experiment would-be very feasible or ethical but most people discount it because they “understand” evolution.
I would discount polyphasic sleep as being natural on grounds of my current knowledge of anthropology. As far as I know there are no known human cultures that engage in polyphasic sleep (not counting biphasic sleep). That seems like pretty strong evidence that it isn’t behavioral, it’s physiological, which in turn suggests (but doesn’t guarantee) an evolutionary basis for human sleep patterns. Of course, some amount of human sleep patterns is behavioral, e.g. the siesta.
Look, our sun forces us into a monophasic pattern because of the day/night cycle that occurs everywhere around the earth but our body’s don’t naturally fall into it. We sleep at night because our brain is wired to sleep when its dark and that’s an evolved mechanism but the behavioral pattern that polyphasic sleep requires isn’t evolved into our system its just a natural response to the natural light patterns of our world . In parts of the world where light comes less often sleeping patterns are different than near the equator as evidenced by biphasic sleepers around the world who follow the Siesta pattern naturally.
All i’m saying is that people attribute evolutionary reasons to things that have many separate causes and are unproven because they think they understand it. That’s what both these quotes illustrate as far as i know :)
I agree, however, reverse stupidity is not intelligence. You say
but this seems like an unsubstantiated claim, just as much as people claiming sleep must be an evolved behavior. I agree that sleep is at least partially behavioral, but it’s unclear to me that there isn’t an evolved component. See this blurb from Wikipedia, which suggests that human sleep patterns are not completely dependent on external stimuli.
Your right, I was being too rhetorical when i said that. The final point of my piece was simply a way of explaining the quote, i can agree that
Fully agree, especially because I suffer from chronic insomnia =D
Have you tried vaporizing medical sleepy weed? That helped a lot with my insomnia :)
Definitely works better than any supplement or herbal remedy I’ve tried, but I usually don’t feel rested the next day.
Can anyone confirm that chimps and bonobos are diurnal as well?
Discounting other theories unjustifiably, or overusing a particular theory past it’s explanation is one sin. Not understanding a theory is another however. I think that many people who draw such false conclusions still base them on a pretty clear understanding of the core of evolutionary theory, i.e. mutation, gene exchange, selection, reproduction.
I agree with your sentiment, but I find myself constantly reminded by this site that the majority of the world is stupider than we give them credit for.