A Thought on Evolution

Posted on July 16, 2018 by DBreitenbeck

Something that occurred to me the other day: if natural selection and chance variables in genes from generation to generation is the main engine of change, then shouldn’t animals that reproduce most rapidly show the most accelerated evolution? That is, shouldn’t, say, the rabbits of today be markedly different from the rabbits of a thousand years ago? I am fairly certain there are potential developments that would render rabbits better able to survive and breed in their environment, so shouldn’t we be seeing continual changes in that kind of species from one century to the next?

Occam’s Razor in Action

Posted on June 12, 2018 by DBreitenbeck

So, there’s a study going around the different popular science sites of the internet to the effect that genetic testing indicates most animal species actually appeared about the same time as humanity: 100 – 200,000 years ago. Apparently, they can tell this by the lack of notable variations in mitochondrial DNA between different species.

I’m not a scientist, and I don’t really even understand the test they claim to have used, nor do I have an ideological dog in this fight, but my initial, and as yet unshaken response to this is: “maybe these variations in mitochondrial DNA just don’t mean what you think they mean.”

A Startling Conclusion

Posted on May 12, 2018 by DBreitenbeck

The real question raised by the tarantula hawk’s practice of paralyzing and laying its eggs into a tarantula before burying it is this; how does it know what a tarantula is, if it was born in the dark, underground, inside the thing? How does it know to go after the tarantula, sting it, bury it, etc.?

And the really startling metaphysical conclusion is this; the wasp enters the world already equipped with knowledge. The ‘blank slate’ conception of the mind is thus disproved by observation.

Check My Reasoning Here

Posted on September 6, 2017 by DBreitenbeck

I was fantasizing about pitting one of my characters against Hannibal Lecter (because I do that sort of thing) when I came out with an argument that rather surprised me. It went something like this:

When a psychologist is studying his patient, his only evidence are what the patient tells him about himself (drawn out by questioning) and the patient’s behavior. His only way to test any ideas he may have about the patient is to ask questions. But by asking questions, he necessarily plants ideas in the other person’s head, thereby changing the state of his mind. If a psychologist suggests a possible explanation, the patient will immediately take that explanation and see if it fits. And, since evidence can be found to fit any theory, he probably will, even if it has nothing to do with the real movements of his mind. The presence of a new idea itself encourages him to view his mind in light of the new idea. Therefore, in psychology the proposal of a theory alters the facts that are supposed to make up the theory.

Thus, psychology inevitably alters the the thing it studies while it’s studying it and can only study by changing it, meaning that, scientifically speaking, almost all psychological conclusions are worthless, because the very act of proposing them alters the facts they are meant to explain.

What do you think? Am I missing something here?

By the way, I don’t think psychology is practically worthless: I’ve benefited from counsellors and the like myself. What I am saying is that, as a theoretical or explanatory science, it has severe flaws. Psychology, as far as I can see, is in much the same state as medicine was in the Medieval period: a lot of the time it works, sometimes it doesn’t, we have no idea why and the explanations we do have are tenuous at best.