Re: Refined fits and treacherous concepts

It seems to me that there is no evidence of progress implied by Darwinian mechanisms except as a result of local adaptation, and that this is consistent with what we see in nature until we get to humans.

It also seems to me that humans are exceptional in the form of agency they have evolved, and that we _do_ see true progress from time to time (or its absence in stark contrast!) in human history, though the analysis is extremely problematic.

I suspect this is partly for its complexity, but largely because of the circular causal relationship between our intuitive view of ourselves and the scientific models we use to describe ourselves. Being a human being concerned with understanding human nature puts the investigator in the middle of a circle where cultural understanding of humans and our intuitions influence each other.

Sociobiologists understandably want to blur the line between man and beast in order to make their study more scientific, and cognitive scientists want to eliminate intentionality or reduce it to algorithms, but in the process they end up applying the wrong tools because we also have unique features that affect the course of our lives.

Todd

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