DOCSLIB.ORG

Evolution of a Mind Eugenie C

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Evolution of a Mind Eugenie C BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT BIOLOGY Evolution of a mind Eugenie C. Scott revels in the first volume of Richard Dawkins’s frank new memoir. ichard Dawkins is one of the world’s confesses, an indifferent student, but a few book put the young An Appetite for best-known scientists — largely teachers managed to stimulate an interest in Dawkins on that Wonder: The because of his tireless promotion science. It is clear that he did not come into short list of scientists Making of a Rof evolution and, more recently, atheism, his own intellectually until he was admitted who are able to make Scientist RICHARD DAWKINS through a succession of best-sellers, videos — by the skin of his teeth — into the Uni- complicated scientific Bantam: 2013. and public appearances. In An Appetite versity of Oxford. There, at Balliol College, ideas understandable for Wonder, the first part of a two-volume Dawkins was lucky enough to be tutored and exciting without oversimplifying them. memoir, Dawkins presents his life up to the by the great ethologist Nikolaas ‘Niko’ Tin- Dawkins is a polarizing figure, both publication of The Selfish Gene (Oxford widely praised and widely criticized. University Press, 1976), the popular- Supporters as well as detractors may science blockbuster that kick-started his be surprised at the honest depiction career as a spokesperson for evolution- of an individual who comes across as ary biology. both less saintly and less diabolical than As befits someone whose life’s work media caricatures may have led them has focused on the cumulative changes to expect. He loves poetry, and readily through time that we call evolution, confesses to choking up when reading Dawkins wants to share the forces and sentimental verse such as Hilaire Belloc’s factors in his life that have shaped the 1910 To the Balliol Men Still in Africa. person he has become. A bookish child, He reflects with chagrin on his lack of TERRY SMITH/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY SMITH/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY TERRY he neglected many opportunities pro- concern about the rampant bullying that vided by his nature-loving parents to took place at his schools, and his support explore and be inspired by the natural of what he now considers the bullying of world. Given that he was born in Nairobi some Berkeley faculty members by radi- and spent his early years in what is now cal professors and students during the Malawi, it seems curious that the natural Vietnam War protests. Of the Berkeley abundance around him did not kindle experience, he notes, “I was still young, that spark. He does speak of developing but not all that young. Should have a fondness for animals, but more through known better.” He readily confesses that reading children’s books such as Hugh scientific habits were slow in coming. It Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle series, noting, is a very honest book. “I learned late to love watching wild Charles Darwin wrote his autobi- creatures, and I have never been such an ography for his family; for whom is outdoor person as either my father or my Dawkins’s written? I found the enumera- grandfather.” tion of ancestors in early chapters a bit The African interlude came about of a slog. The middle chapters describ- because Dawkins’s father, Clinton John ing his childhood in Africa and school Dawkins, followed family tradition by days in England should be of interest working in the British foreign service. to all. The latter chapters, dealing with Dawkins presents his father, who was Richard Dawkins studying mating calls in crickets in 1976. his mathematical modelling of evolu- a forester, as independent, resourceful, tion, might appeal more to scientists. inventive and willing to take big risks. When bergen, and became fascinated by animal Dawkins’s atheist fans are not all necessarily a distant relative unexpectedly bequeathed behaviour. in that camp, and might find the graphs and to John Dawkins the country estate Over The latter part of the book traces Dawk- diagrams of behaviour patterns daunting. Norton Park in Oxfordshire, UK, he moved ins’s intellectual path from Oxford to his However, throughout and as usual, Dawk- the family back to England, renounced his assistant professorship in zoology at the ins’s writing is graceful, sparkling with anec- government pension and turned the land University of California, Berkeley (where dotes and wit. Those of us who struggle in into a working farm. Richard, then eight, was he was swept up in the movement against our writing will be comforted to read the soon packed off to boarding school. the Vietnam War), and his return to Oxford words: “Pretty much every sentence I write The picture Dawkins paints of his schools as a young scientist. It describes his transi- is revised, fiddled with, re-ordered, crossed is, if not quite Dickensian, pretty awful: little tion from a quantitatively oriented com- out and re-worked.” In other words, the boys lining up naked for cold morning baths, puter-programming experimentalist who elegant, functional design of his writing is shivering in unheated rooms, choking down modelled chick behaviour to the more theo- accomplished through variation and selec- bad-tasting food, retically oriented scientist we know today. tion. Why am I not surprised? ■ NATURE.COM enduring corporal pun- I doubt if more than 1 in 10,000 readers of For a celebration of ishment and bullying, The Selfish Gene ever read his earlier experi- Eugenie Scott is executive director of the The Selfish Gene, and not always receiv- mental work. (I hadn’t, either.) Inspired by National Center for Science Education in see: ing a sterling educa- the 1970s ferment over group and individ- Oakland, California. go.nature.com/383s7y tion. Dawkins was, he ual selection, kin selection and the like, that e-mail: [email protected] 12 SEPTEMBER 2013 | VOL 501 | NATURE | 163 © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Book Review the God Delusion Richard Dawkins New
    Book review The God delusion Richard Dawkins New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006 Renato Zamora Flores* * PhD. Professor, Department of Genetics, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil. “The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that “theology” is a subject at all?” (Richard Dawkins)1 On September 15, 2001, only 4 days after the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center in New York, Richard Dawkins – evolutionary biologist, 65 years, professor of public understanding of science at the University of Oxford – published an incisive article on the renowned English newspaper The Guardian, with the impressive title “Religion’s misguided missiles,” where he stated: “Those people were not mindless and they were certainly not cowards. On the contrary, they had sufficiently effective minds braced with an insane courage, and it would pay us mightily to understand where that courage came from. It came from religion. Religion is also, of course, the underlying source of the divisiveness in the Middle East... To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used”.2 1 Without losing the courage and creativity that have characterized Dawkins since his first book, The selfish gene,3 launched 30 years ago, the British scientist now launches a dense and solid critical work on the logical and scientific bases of religious thinking: The God delusion. The title is a bit more sarcastic than it looks.
    [Show full text]
  • The Strange Survival and Apparent Resurgence of Sociobiology
    This is a repository copy of The strange survival and apparent resurgence of sociobiology. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/118157/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Dennis, A. orcid.org/0000-0003-4625-1123 (2018) The strange survival and apparent resurgence of sociobiology. History of the Human Sciences, 31 (1). pp. 19-35. ISSN 0952- 6951 https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695117735966 Dennis A. The strange survival and apparent resurgence of sociobiology. History of the Human Sciences. 2018;31(1):19-35. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0952695117735966. Article available under the terms of the CC- BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can’t change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ The strange survival and apparent resurgence of sociobiology Abstract A recent dispute between Richard Dawkins and Edward O. Wilson concerning fundamental concepts in sociobiology is examined.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. a Dangerous Idea
    About This Guide This guide is intended to assist in the use of the DVD Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. The following pages provide an organizational schema for the DVD along with general notes for each section, key quotes from the DVD,and suggested discussion questions relevant to the section. The program is divided into seven parts, each clearly distinguished by a section title during the program. Contents Seven-Part DVD A Dangerous Idea. 3 Darwin’s Inversion . 4 Cranes: Getting Here from There . 8 Fruits of the Tree of Life . 11 Humans without Skyhooks . 13 Gradualism . 17 Memetic Revolution . 20 Articles by Daniel Dennett Could There Be a Darwinian Account of Human Creativity?. 25 From Typo to Thinko: When Evolution Graduated to Semantic Norms. 33 In Darwin’s Wake, Where Am I?. 41 2 Darwin's Dangerous Idea 1. A Dangerous Idea Dennett considers Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection the best single idea that anyone ever had.But it has also turned out to be a dangerous one. Science has accepted the theory as the most accurate explanation of the intricate design of living beings,but when it was first proposed,and again in recent times,the theory has met with a backlash from many people.What makes evolution so threatening,when theories in physics and chemistry seem so harmless? One problem with the introduction of Darwin’s great idea is that almost no one was prepared for such a revolutionary view of creation. Dennett gives an analogy between this inversion and Sweden’s change in driving direction: I’m going to imagine, would it be dangerous if tomorrow the people in Great Britain started driving on the right? It would be a really dangerous place to be because they’ve been driving on the left all these years….
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Dawkins
    RICHARD DAWKINS HOW A SCIENTIST CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK Reflections by scientists, writers, and philosophers Edited by ALAN GRAFEN AND MARK RIDLEY 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Oxford University Press 2006 with the exception of To Rise Above © Marek Kohn 2006 and Every Indication of Inadvertent Solicitude © Philip Pullman 2006 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should
    [Show full text]
  • What, If Anything, Is a Darwinian Anthropology?
    JONATHAN MARKS What, if anything, is a Darwinian anthropology? Not too many years ago, I was scanning the job advertisements in anthropology and stumbled upon one for a faculty post in a fairly distinguished department in California. The ad specified that they were looking for someone who ‘studied culture from an evolutionary perspective’. I was struck by that, because it seemed to me that the alternative would be a creationist perspective, and I had never heard of anyone in this century who did that. Obviously my initial reading was incorrect. That department specifically wanted someone with a particular methodological and ideo- logical orientation; ‘evolutionary perspective’ was there as a code for something else. It has fascinated me for a number of years that Darwin stands as a very powerful symbol in biology. On the one hand, he represents the progressive aspect of science in its perpetual struggle against the perceived oppressive forces of Christianity (Larson 1997); and on the other, he represents as well the prevailing stodgy and stultified scientific orthodoxy against which any new bold and original theory must cast itself (Gould 1980). Proponents of the neutral theory (King and Jukes 1969) or of punctuated equilibria (Eldredge 1985) represented themselves as Darwinists to the outside worlds, and as anti-Darwinists to the inside world. Thus, Darwinism can be both the new and improved ideology you should bring home today, and is also the superseded Brand X ideology. That is indeed a powerful metaphor, to represent something as well as its opposite. Curiously, nobody ever told me in my scientific training that scientific progress was somehow predicated on the development of powerful metaphors.
    [Show full text]
  • Ten Misunderstandings About Evolution a Very Brief Guide for the Curious and the Confused by Dr
    Ten Misunderstandings About Evolution A Very Brief Guide for the Curious and the Confused By Dr. Mike Webster, Dept. of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University ([email protected]); February 2010 The current debate over evolution and “intelligent design” (ID) is being driven by a relatively small group of individuals who object to the theory of evolution for religious reasons. The debate is fueled, though, by misunderstandings on the part of the American public about what evolutionary biology is and what it says. These misunderstandings are exploited by proponents of ID, intentionally or not, and are often echoed in the media. In this booklet I briefly outline and explain 10 of the most common (and serious) misunderstandings. It is impossible to treat each point thoroughly in this limited space; I encourage you to read further on these topics and also by visiting the websites given on the resource sheet. In addition, I am happy to send a somewhat expanded version of this booklet to anybody who is interested – just send me an email to ask for one! What are the misunderstandings? 1. Evolution is progressive improvement of species Evolution, particularly human evolution, is often pictured in textbooks as a string of organisms marching in single file from “simple” organisms (usually a single celled organism or a monkey) on one side of the page and advancing to “complex” organisms on the opposite side of the page (almost invariably a human being). We have all seen this enduring image and likely have some version of it burned into our brains.
    [Show full text]
  • Darwins-Corrosive-Idea.Pdf
    This report was prepared and published by Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, a non-profit, non-partisan educational and research organization. The Center’s mission is to advance the understanding that human beings and nature are the result of intelligent design rather than a blind and undirected process. We seek long-term scientific and cultural change through cutting-edge scientific research and scholarship; education and training of young leaders; communication to the general public; and advocacy of academic freedom and free speech for scientists, teachers, and students. For more information about the Center, visit www.discovery.org/id. FOR FREE RESOURCES ABOUT SCIENCE AND FAITH, VISIT WWW.SCIENCEANDGOD.ORG/RESOURCES. PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 2016. © 2016 BY DISCOVERY INSTITUTE. DARWIN’S CORROSIVE IDEA The Impact of Evolution on Attitudes about Faith, Ethics, and Human Uniqueness John G. West, PhD* EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In his influential book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, have asked about the impact of science on a person’s philosopher Daniel Dennett praised Darwinian religious faith typically have not explored the evolution for being a “universal acid” that dissolves impact of specific scientific ideas such as Darwinian traditional religious and moral beliefs.1 Evolution- evolution.5 ary biologist Richard Dawkins has similarly praised In order to gain insights into the impact of Darwin for making “it possible to be an intellect- specific scientific ideas on popular beliefs about ually fulfilled atheist.”2 Although numerous studies God and ethics, Discovery Institute conducted a have documented the influence of Darwinian nationwide survey of a representative sample of theory and other scientific ideas on the views of 3,664 American adults.
    [Show full text]
  • Dawkins on Nowak Et Al. and Kin Selection « Why Evolution Is True 25/03/2011 10:17
    Big dust-up about kin selection « Why Evolution Is True 25/03/2011 10:19 Why Evolution Is True « Bummer Peregrinations » Book Links « Home Big dust-up about kin selection About the Author Search About the Book Excerpt Find » Last August I wrote about a new paper in Nature by three Harvard Research Interests biologists, Martin Nowak, Corina Tarnita, and Edward O. Wilson. Their Reviews Meta paper was, as I called it, a “misguided attack on kin selection,” referring Register Log in to the form of selection in which the reproductive success of a gene Buy the Book (usually a gene that affects behavior) is influenced not only by its effects Amazon.co.uk Links on its carrier, but also by its effects on related individuals (kin) carrying Amazon.com the same gene. This idea, introduced to evolutionary biology by George All posts Barnes & Noble All comments Price and W. D. Hamilton, has been enormously productive, explaining all Borders sorts of things from parental care and parent-offspring conflict to sex Indie Bound Email Subscription ratios in animals and, perhaps most important, the evolution of “altruism.” Nowak et al.’s paper attacked the idea that this form of Enter your email address to selection—based on a gene’s “inclusive fitness”—was important in subscribe to this blog and explaining anything; indeed, they didn’t even see kin selection as a form receive notifications of new of natural selection. My original post details most of my objections to posts by email. their paper. Now, seven months later, Nature has published a spate of objections to the Nowak et al paper: there are five critiques and a response to them by Nowak et al.
    [Show full text]
  • How a Generation Was Misled About Natural Selection
    Gabora, L. (2011). How a Generation Was Misled About Natural Selection. Psychology Today (online). http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mindbloggling How a Generation Was Misled About Natural Selection Subtitle: Natural Selection: How it Works, How it Applies to Culture Liane Gabora Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia Okanagan Campus, Arts Building, 333 University Way, Kelowna BC, V1V 1V7, CANADA For 'Mindbloggling' column, Psychology Today Abstract This article explains how natural selection works and how it has been inappropriately applied to the description of cultural change. It proposes an alternative evolutionary explanation for cultural evolution that describes it in terms of communal exchange. When science is explained to the general public it is necessary to simplify. Inevitably details get left out, details that some consider important, and the ‘sexy' parts of the story get played up. But so long as the overall picture is more or less right, scientists generally appreciate the efforts of popular science writers, the press, and in some cases their fellow colleagues, to make their work accessible to a wider audience. The public in turn benefits from the opportunity to see the world they live in from a new perspective, and consider questions they might not otherwise have considered. Sometimes, though, the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. The ‘babyless' version of a scientific story may be a hit nonetheless. Unless one has advanced training in a highly specialized area of a scientific discipline, it may appear to make sense. In most cases, the 1 misrepresentation of science doesn't make much difference; life goes on as normal.
    [Show full text]
  • DANIEL DENNETT and the SCIENCE of RELIGION Richard F
    DANIEL DENNETT AND THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION Richard F. Green Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Minnesota-Duluth Duluth, MN 55812 ABSTRACT Daniel Dennett (2006) recently published a book, “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,” which advocates the scientific study of religion. Dennett is a philosopher with wide-ranging interests including evolution and cognitive psychology. This talk is basically a review of Dennett’s religion book, but it will include comments about other work about religion, some mentioned by Dennett and some not. I will begin by describing my personal interest in religion and philosophy, including some recent reading. Then I will comment about the study of religion, including the scientific study of religion. Then I will describe some of Dennett’s ideas about religion. I will conclude by trying outlining the ideas that should be considered in order to understand religion. This talk is mostly about ideas, particularly religious beliefs, but not so much churches, creeds or religious practices. These other aspects of religion are important, and are the subject of study by a number of disciplines. I will mention some of the ways that people have studied religion, mainly to provide context for the particular ideas that I want to emphasize. I share Dennett’s reticence about defining religion. I will offer several definitions of religion, but religion is probably better defined by example than by attempting to specify its essence. A particular example of a religion is Christianity, even more particularly, Roman Catholicism. MOTIVATION My interest in philosophy and religion I. Beginnings I read a few books about religion and philosophy when I was in high school and imagined that college would be full of people arguing about religion and philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI
    bs_bs_banner MIDWEST STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY Midwest Studies In Philosophy, XXXVII (2013) New Atheism and the Scientistic Turn in the Atheism Movement MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI I The so-called “New Atheism” is a relatively well-defined, very recent, still unfold- ing cultural phenomenon with import for public understanding of both science and philosophy.Arguably, the opening salvo of the New Atheists was The End of Faith by Sam Harris, published in 2004, followed in rapid succession by a number of other titles penned by Harris himself, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Victor Stenger, and Christopher Hitchens.1 After this initial burst, which was triggered (according to Harris himself) by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, a number of other authors have been associated with the New Atheism, even though their contributions sometimes were in the form of newspapers and magazine articles or blog posts, perhaps most prominent among them evolutionary biologists and bloggers Jerry Coyne and P.Z. Myers. Still others have published and continue to publish books on atheism, some of which have had reasonable success, probably because of the interest generated by the first wave. This second wave, however, often includes authors that explicitly 1. Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004); Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage, 2006); Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006); Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York: Viking Press, 2006); Victor J. Stenger, God:The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007); Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (New York: Twelve Books, 2007).
    [Show full text]
  • Download Paper
    Peter Frost Negotiating the gap Four academics and the dilemma of human biodiversity Abstract This essay presents four academics—Richard Dawkins, Claude Lévi-Strauss, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides—and how they negotiated the gap between personal conviction and mainstream discourse. All four came to the conclusion that human populations differ not only anatomically but also in various mental and behavioral predispositions. These differences are statistical and often apparent only between large groups of people. But even a weak statistical difference can affect how a society will develop and organize itself. Human biodiversity is therefore a reality, and one we ignore at our peril. How, then, should one negotiate this gap? Of the above academics, Claude Lévi-Strauss made the fewest compromises, whereas the others chose various mixed messages, perhaps hoping that someone else would pick up the ball and run with it. Today, the question remains unanswered. How can one get the message across without being penalized? There are no easy answers, and that may be part of the problem. Too many people are looking for answers that are easy—that cost little in terms of reputation, career prospects, or acceptance at the next cocktail party. Why not instead assume that everything worthwhile has a cost and then look for ways to minimize the cost? Keywords: antiracism, Claude Lévi-Strauss, gene-culture co-evolution, human behavior, human genetics, John Tooby, Leda Cosmides, Richard Dawkins Author: Peter Frost, 2014 Based on a series of posts that appeared on the blog Evo and Proud www.evoandproud.blogspot.ca from January 28, 2010 to February 11, 2010.
    [Show full text]