darwin

[Prof David West]

The "woke" "presentists" are coming after Darwin:

"Despite his notional belief in abolition, Darwin believed whites were more evolved than “savage races,” whom they would—as an unfolding of natural selection—“exterminate and replace.” Oh, and he was a eugenicist: in The Descent of Man, he muses that it would be best to simply let the weak die."

davew

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[thompnickson2]

I wonder how he accommodated that to the Fuegian whom they took back to England, taught him to be a Perfect English Gentleman, and them dumped him back on the Terra in his double-breasted suit to civilize his relatives.   I don’t know about “woke” and “presentist”, but it’s; true, the Victorians have a lot to answer for. 

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 9:15 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] darwin

 

The "woke" "presentists" are coming after Darwin:

 

"Despite his notional belief in abolition, Darwin believed whites were more evolved than “savage races,” whom they would—as an unfolding of natural selection—“exterminate and replace.” Oh, and he was a eugenicist: in The Descent of Man, he muses that it would be best to simply let the weak die."

 

davew

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Another ambiguous figure is Werner Heisenberg.   How about stop naming things after their attributed inventor?

 

On a recent United Shades of America, Kamau Bell interviewed Yvette Carnell, representing the American Descendants of Slavery.    They apparently believe that only native black American’s should have reparations.   This to me seems a preposterous way to rebalance the scales.   If anything the country should take steps to erase family history by, say, officially clearing parents for raising children and then mandating adoption.   The human equivalent of go to the dog shelter, not a puppy factory.

That would get a the root of the problem, the belief that cultural inheritance (if there is any meaning, which I very much doubt) is in any way coupled to biology.

 

As for presentism, this relates to the science/religion discussion in a sense.   Does a non-believer also consider the possibility that there is nothing deep to learn, and that progress is impossible?  Why even imagine there could be structure to the universe, and if not, then the things people do are arbitrary and slavery is just one of many aggregate behaviors that societies may perform.   As a non-believer, I would respond that compression of information is also something that humans do, and that in many cases it has been very useful to humans.   This discovery of compressibility can be an accident.  It doesn’t require the leap of faith that anything is designed or True in the world, it just requires tools to work in some context.

 

As time passes, there will be more opportunity for compression into models.   Some of that compression may be lossy or overtrained to context.  When that happens, those models should be forgotten.   Contemporary models may be overtrained to contemporary context.   If we take an extreme case and say there are no models that endure across generations, then history is unimportant and can teach us nothing.   If we are alienated from our past and even many in our present, then focus completely on the present context, because it will be gone in instant.   The old models are for historians and dusty shelves.

I have to admit then when I have felt alienated from my present, I have tended to put my head down and work.    It kind of works.

 

Marcus

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:15 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] darwin

 

The "woke" "presentists" are coming after Darwin:

 

"Despite his notional belief in abolition, Darwin believed whites were more evolved than “savage races,” whom they would—as an unfolding of natural selection—“exterminate and replace.” Oh, and he was a eugenicist: in The Descent of Man, he muses that it would be best to simply let the weak die."

 

davew

 

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[thompnickson2]

Marcus, 

 

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.  You know the little rings they put on newborn’s wrists that correspond to the larger rings they put on the mothers to keep the babies from getting lost in the puppy mill?  Every night at Midnight, lets remove the wrings from the new born babies, send them to a central location, randomize them and then send them back.  AT 8 am the next morning, all the newborns are flown to their new mothers. 

 

What exactly would that change?  Well, to be sure, it would instantly break the connection between race and class.  And, one could say, finally, that in America, all persons are created equal, i.e., have an equal opportunity for financial and social advancement.  But a day later, The 99 percent are just as screwed as they ever were. 

 

Isn’t that cultural inheritance at work?  Does it matter, at al,l that Ivanka is actually Trump’s daughter?

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 10:56 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] darwin

 

Another ambiguous figure is Werner Heisenberg.   How about stop naming things after their attributed inventor?

 

On a recent United Shades of America, Kamau Bell interviewed Yvette Carnell, representing the American Descendants of Slavery.    They apparently believe that only native black American’s should have reparations.   This to me seems a preposterous way to rebalance the scales.   If anything the country should take steps to erase family history by, say, officially clearing parents for raising children and then mandating adoption.   The human equivalent of go to the dog shelter, not a puppy factory.

That would get a the root of the problem, the belief that cultural inheritance (if there is any meaning, which I very much doubt) is in any way coupled to biology.

 

As for presentism, this relates to the science/religion discussion in a sense.   Does a non-believer also consider the possibility that there is nothing deep to learn, and that progress is impossible?  Why even imagine there could be structure to the universe, and if not, then the things people do are arbitrary and slavery is just one of many aggregate behaviors that societies may perform.   As a non-believer, I would respond that compression of information is also something that humans do, and that in many cases it has been very useful to humans.   This discovery of compressibility can be an accident.  It doesn’t require the leap of faith that anything is designed or True in the world, it just requires tools to work in some context.

 

As time passes, there will be more opportunity for compression into models.   Some of that compression may be lossy or overtrained to context.  When that happens, those models should be forgotten.   Contemporary models may be overtrained to contemporary context.   If we take an extreme case and say there are no models that endure across generations, then history is unimportant and can teach us nothing.   If we are alienated from our past and even many in our present, then focus completely on the present context, because it will be gone in instant.   The old models are for historians and dusty shelves.

I have to admit then when I have felt alienated from my present, I have tended to put my head down and work.    It kind of works.

 

Marcus

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:15 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] darwin

 

The "woke" "presentists" are coming after Darwin:

 

"Despite his notional belief in abolition, Darwin believed whites were more evolved than “savage races,” whom they would—as an unfolding of natural selection—“exterminate and replace.” Oh, and he was a eugenicist: in The Descent of Man, he muses that it would be best to simply let the weak die."

 

davew

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

There could be additional genetic filters on fearless dominance and impulsive antisociality as part of the ring swapping protocol.   At least the Trump types, if they were allowed at all to exist, should be raised under the watchful eye of experts.

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 10:12 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] darwin

 

Marcus, 

 

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.  You know the little rings they put on newborn’s wrists that correspond to the larger rings they put on the mothers to keep the babies from getting lost in the puppy mill?  Every night at Midnight, lets remove the wrings from the new born babies, send them to a central location, randomize them and then send them back.  AT 8 am the next morning, all the newborns are flown to their new mothers. 

 

What exactly would that change?  Well, to be sure, it would instantly break the connection between race and class.  And, one could say, finally, that in America, all persons are created equal, i.e., have an equal opportunity for financial and social advancement.  But a day later, The 99 percent are just as screwed as they ever were. 

 

Isn’t that cultural inheritance at work?  Does it matter, at al,l that Ivanka is actually Trump’s daughter?

 

n

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 10:56 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] darwin

 

Another ambiguous figure is Werner Heisenberg.   How about stop naming things after their attributed inventor?

 

On a recent United Shades of America, Kamau Bell interviewed Yvette Carnell, representing the American Descendants of Slavery.    They apparently believe that only native black American’s should have reparations.   This to me seems a preposterous way to rebalance the scales.   If anything the country should take steps to erase family history by, say, officially clearing parents for raising children and then mandating adoption.   The human equivalent of go to the dog shelter, not a puppy factory.

That would get a the root of the problem, the belief that cultural inheritance (if there is any meaning, which I very much doubt) is in any way coupled to biology.

 

As for presentism, this relates to the science/religion discussion in a sense.   Does a non-believer also consider the possibility that there is nothing deep to learn, and that progress is impossible?  Why even imagine there could be structure to the universe, and if not, then the things people do are arbitrary and slavery is just one of many aggregate behaviors that societies may perform.   As a non-believer, I would respond that compression of information is also something that humans do, and that in many cases it has been very useful to humans.   This discovery of compressibility can be an accident.  It doesn’t require the leap of faith that anything is designed or True in the world, it just requires tools to work in some context.

 

As time passes, there will be more opportunity for compression into models.   Some of that compression may be lossy or overtrained to context.  When that happens, those models should be forgotten.   Contemporary models may be overtrained to contemporary context.   If we take an extreme case and say there are no models that endure across generations, then history is unimportant and can teach us nothing.   If we are alienated from our past and even many in our present, then focus completely on the present context, because it will be gone in instant.   The old models are for historians and dusty shelves.

I have to admit then when I have felt alienated from my present, I have tended to put my head down and work.    It kind of works.

 

Marcus

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 8:15 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [FRIAM] darwin

 

The "woke" "presentists" are coming after Darwin:

 

"Despite his notional belief in abolition, Darwin believed whites were more evolved than “savage races,” whom they would—as an unfolding of natural selection—“exterminate and replace.” Oh, and he was a eugenicist: in The Descent of Man, he muses that it would be best to simply let the weak die."

 

davew

 

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[David Eric Smith]

There is also a passage in one of the books, off one of the coasts of S. America, when Darwin is in a small boat, which a few locals, and at least one slave in some capacity (maybe not boat driver; maybe going with the group to do something; I forget).  Somebody (either Darwin or one of the others) gestures at something, maybe swatting a fly or exclaiming about something, but in any case, the hands move toward the slave, who immediately drops his arms and goes slack, expecting to be struck and concerned above all to not appear as if he is resisting.  Although I forget all the lead-up, I think I remember Darwin’s response to the moment, which was to be struck with the greatest force he had ever experienced on the topic, what a degrading institution slavery is, to condition a man not to stand up for his own protection from assault.

On Sep 26, 2020, at 12:51 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

I wonder how he accommodated that to the Fuegian whom they took back to England, taught him to be a Perfect English Gentleman, and them dumped him back on the Terra in his double-breasted suit to civilize his relatives.   I don’t know about “woke” and “presentist”, but it’s; true, the Victorians have a lot to answer for. 

In this passage, if I remember, the Fuegian (Jemmy Button?) was quite happy when he went back.  On a visit a year later (?), when the English saw him on one of the bluffs and went over, he did come to talk to them.  I believe I remember his saying life is good, they have “plenty fruits” etc.  It is odd that, when people aren’t aware they should be appalled at the overall set of a situation, and therefore talk about it in matter-of-fact terms, some of the details of recognizable human complexity get into the record.

I forget ever reading a similar revisit of what happened to the girl they took (Fuegia Basket?).

Eric 

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[thompnickson2]

That’s a wonderful story, Eric.  I did not know that.  Nick

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

[hidden email]

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2020 11:35 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] darwin

 

There is also a passage in one of the books, off one of the coasts of S. America, when Darwin is in a small boat, which a few locals, and at least one slave in some capacity (maybe not boat driver; maybe going with the group to do something; I forget).  Somebody (either Darwin or one of the others) gestures at something, maybe swatting a fly or exclaiming about something, but in any case, the hands move toward the slave, who immediately drops his arms and goes slack, expecting to be struck and concerned above all to not appear as if he is resisting.  Although I forget all the lead-up, I think I remember Darwin’s response to the moment, which was to be struck with the greatest force he had ever experienced on the topic, what a degrading institution slavery is, to condition a man not to stand up for his own protection from assault.

On Sep 26, 2020, at 12:51 PM, <[hidden email]> <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

I wonder how he accommodated that to the Fuegian whom they took back to England, taught him to be a Perfect English Gentleman, and them dumped him back on the Terra in his double-breasted suit to civilize his relatives.   I don’t know about “woke” and “presentist”, but it’s; true, the Victorians have a lot to answer for. 

 

In this passage, if I remember, the Fuegian (Jemmy Button?) was quite happy when he went back.  On a visit a year later (?), when the English saw him on one of the bluffs and went over, he did come to talk to them.  I believe I remember his saying life is good, they have “plenty fruits” etc.  It is odd that, when people aren’t aware they should be appalled at the overall set of a situation, and therefore talk about it in matter-of-fact terms, some of the details of recognizable human complexity get into the record.

 

I forget ever reading a similar revisit of what happened to the girl they took (Fuegia Basket?).

 

Eric 

 

 

 

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