Quote:At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kauffman Holy glockenspiel, I had no idea this book existed. I received Kauffman, Origins of Order by mistake from the Science Book Club, and they told me to go ahead and keep it. I read, well, I read the words in the book, anyway; I understood about maybe 20%...

Quote:A survival strategy is not the same thing as a reproductive strategy. Survival of individuals is one of the tools that genes use to get themselves replicated. From the point of view of the gene, survival and reproduction are inextricably linked. Consider r-strategy and K-strategy organisms. Is...

Quote:Evolution does not select for anything. Ever. Natural selection is a negative process which can only cull the unfit. I understand what you are saying and agree in principle. Natural selection is indeed a culling process; however, it is only one part of the evolutionary process. Variation, sele...

Here is how Richard Dawkins explains the process of cooperation between selfish genes.One oarsman on his own cannot win the Oxford and Cambridge boat race. He needs eight colleagues. Each one is a specialist who always sits in a particular part of the boat--bow or stroke or cox etc. Rowing the boat ...

Bloom's insistence that cooperation means that biologists are wrong, and that there is some kind of mystical force directing species to work for the common good, reminds me of religionists insisting that the sunrise prooves there's a 'god'. I counted four seperate attacks on mainstream biology on pa...

Speaking of oddities; Bloom (or his editor) got the name of "On The Origin of Species" wrong.

Mainstream biology resistes "group selection" because no physical mechanism has ever been posited. If the obvious answer is impossible, then there must be another answer. The principle of the selfish gene resolves the puzzle of animals warning their cohorts and other instances of altruism ...

I have no doubt that humans can work for the good of the group, to the detriment of their own progeny. If we can't, we might as well throw in the towel now. But this is based on thought and on culture.

Well, I've only just begun, but I feel the need to take exception already: on page six, Bloom says, "Individual survival is not the only mechanism of the evolutionary process. . ." The discussion shows a lack of understanding and his conclusion is wrong. Selection for the benefit of the gr...

Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype. Here is what Dr. Dawkins himself has to say about it:I suppose that most scientists