Darwinian Fairytales

What Hacker News says

1. scottlocklinSep 2020
   It's funny, the author has made a decent case for why pop science/non-fiction books are useless (I agree) despite pitching a book on an obvious nonsense subject about imaginary computers unlikely to ever exist (or, if you're an optimist; to exist in our lifetimes). Imagine wanting to master a field less realistic than phlogiston theory or medieval demonology to the extent that it "also means repeating those quick memory tests in expanding intervals over the following days, weeks, and months." I suppose indoctrination is necessary since this form of anti-knowledge is unlikely to ever be actually used -unlike actual knowledge, say, such as linear algebra or obscure tree data structures relating to metric spaces.

   Books are mostly not for actually learning a technical subject; they're for reviewing the subject after you already know something, and expanding your knowledge after you have the basics. There are many things I know, and can recall with effort, as they're in long term memory, but can easily recall and apply if I pick up a book and thumb through it for a few minutes. Yeah, I can cook up a nice boeuf bourguignon or pumpernickel bread from memory, but it's gonna go a lot more smoothly if I read the cookbook.

   Another thing he misses; if a book makes you feel something, it's going to stick with you a lot more clearly than some recitation of dry facts. Storm of Steel sticks with me better than the official British History of the Great War. Similarly, "Darwinian Fairytales," which is absolutely hilarious in addition to being perfectly correct, sticks with me a lot better than "The Selfish Gene" -which I've paid considerably more attention to.

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2. scottlocklinMay 2020
   Read the philosopher of science David Stove's "Darwinian fairytales." You'll realize that Dawkins book is

   1) Not orthodox science in any sense of the word, nor really philosophy of science (though it is a popularization of the work of people like William Hamilton)

   2) Philosophically bonkers; it's essentially medieval demonology repackaged where the demons are called "genes."

   3) Not written by an actual scientist.

   It's also a hilarious takedown, as are most of David Stove's essays and books. I liked Dawkin's fairytale when I first read it, for the same reason I liked death metal music and fedora tier atheism arguments on usenet. But it's horse shit. FWIIW another nail in its coffin; Dawkin's ideology originates in part from a guy named George Price: have a look at part 3 of the Adam Curtis documentary "all watched over by machines of loving grace" for more on what became of him.

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3. scottlocklinFeb 2019
   Yeah, that was a biggie for me, until I read "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove. Everyone who has read Dawkins needs to have a look at this.

   A philosopher has a look at what Dawkins actually says and realizes it is basically medieval demonology dressed up in pseudoscientific verbiage.

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4. FabHKFeb 2019
   Hmm, I'll check that Darwinian Fairytales out. However, I must say, I've read Alas, Poor Darwin: Arguments against Evolutionary Psychology, to see what critics of Dawkins and evolutionary psychology had to say, and found it rather poor.

   So, for now, my considered view is that Dawkins has many interesting insightful things to say, while his critics are often attacking straw men.

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5. YouAreGreatFeb 2019
   > "Darwinian Fairytales" by David Stove

   The search engine coughed up a PDF. I randomly opened it (p. 173) and read up to this author-provided "TL;DR" on p.176:

   The main reason, however, for thinking that sociobiology is false, is the simple one I gave at the beginning: that it is obvious that human beings are the most intelligent and capable things on earth. But genes are not human. Therefore (etc.).

   Uhhhm. Really?

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6. yesenadamNov 2018
   Some of the most intelligent people in history including renowned philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians did not seem to focus on using their intelligence to acquire as much power or wealth as possible.

   More significantly, they tend to not have children.

   "Men of the highest genius who were childless include Newton, Faraday, and Mendel; Vivaldi, Handel, and Beethoven; Gibbon, Macaulay, and Carlyle; Plato, Aquinas, Bacon, Locke, Leibniz, Hume, Kant and Mill. Anyone who thinks he can frame a list of comparable individuals who had on the average enough children to counter-balance the childlessness of these, is welcome to try; but he will not succeed. ...Just below the very highest level, and average number of children is again far below the average for people of no intellectual or artistic distinction. And it is, again, spectacularly depressed by the huge contribution of the childless: Copernicus, Swift, Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, Haydn, Dalton, Francis Galton himself - to mention a few examples at random." (David Stove, Darwinian Fairytales)

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