Re: [HM] Blind spots in cultures
Gordon Fisher (gfisher@shentel.net)
Tue, 10 Nov 1998 23:34:00
At 05:40 PM 11/10/98 -0500, Paul G. Shotsberger wrote:
>Eric Schechter wrote:
>
>> I think that each culture has certain blind spots. There are
>> some concepts that, though not necessarily difficult, nevertheless
>> get overlooked by a culture for many years, simply because those
>> ideas are too different from the culture's usual way of seeing
>> things. I think a good example of this is the idea of evolution,
>> which is really not a complicated idea at all, but it came as
>> a great shock to our modern culture when Darwin formulated it.
>
>Another potential blind spot is equating mathematical theory with scientific
>theory. As we've seen recently with Fermat's Last Theorem, even the toughest
>propositions in Number Theory are vulnerable to proof. In contrast, even the
>simplest tenets of the Theory of Evolution cannot be proven conclusively.
Let's
>not over-stretch the boundaries of analogy (though references to Star Trek
are
>always welcome).
>
>Paul Shotsberger
>
>--
>Dr. Paul G. Shotsberger Associate Professor
>Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics shotsbergerp@uncwil.edu
>Univ. of N. Carolina at Wilmington Phone: (910) 962-3306
>601 South College Road Fax: (910) 962-7107
>Wilmington, North Carolina 28403
>http://www.uncwil.edu/people/shotsbergerp/
>
>
>
I was going to remain silent on this one, but I can't resist. Darwin was
not the first to formulate a theory of evolution. There were, for example,
Lamarck and Robert Chambers (*Vestiges of Creation*), and Charles Darwin's
grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (in a poem, no less), among others. Theories
of evolution were in the air by the time Darwin came along. I believe what
was really new in Darwin's formulation was his theory of natural selection
and a suggestion of randomness, with their anti-teleological and
anti-theological implications. Also, I don't see how a full-fledged theory
of evolution can be called simple???
Gordon Fisher gfisher@shentel.net