Also it’s unclear to me what the connection is between this part and the second.
My bad, I did a poor job explaining that. The first part is about the problems of using generic words (evolution) with fuzzy decompositions (mates, predators, etc) to come to conclusions, which can often be incorrect. The second part is about decomposing those generic words into their implied structure, and matching that structure to problems in order to get a more reliable fit.
I don’t believe that “I don’t know” is a good answer, even if it’s often the correct one. People have vague intuitions regarding phenomena, and wouldn’t it be nice if they could apply those intuitions reliably? That requires a mapping from the intuition (evolution is responsible) to the problem, and the mapping can only be made reliable once the intuition has been properly decomposed into its implied structure, and even then, only if the mapping is based on the decomposition.
I started off by trying to explain all of that, but realized that there is far too much when starting from scratch. Maybe someday I’ll be able to write that post...
My bad, I did a poor job explaining that. The first part is about the problems of using generic words (evolution) with fuzzy decompositions (mates, predators, etc) to come to conclusions, which can often be incorrect. The second part is about decomposing those generic words into their implied structure, and matching that structure to problems in order to get a more reliable fit.
I don’t believe that “I don’t know” is a good answer, even if it’s often the correct one. People have vague intuitions regarding phenomena, and wouldn’t it be nice if they could apply those intuitions reliably? That requires a mapping from the intuition (evolution is responsible) to the problem, and the mapping can only be made reliable once the intuition has been properly decomposed into its implied structure, and even then, only if the mapping is based on the decomposition.
I started off by trying to explain all of that, but realized that there is far too much when starting from scratch. Maybe someday I’ll be able to write that post...