Re: Piaget on the phenocopy

From: John Wilkins (wilkins@wehi.EDU.AU)
Date: Sun Feb 20 2000 - 07:09:48 GMT

  • Next message: Scott Chase: "Re: Piaget on the phenocopy"

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    Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 18:09:48 +1100 (EST)
    From: John Wilkins <wilkins@wehi.EDU.AU>
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Piaget on the phenocopy
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    Yes, Piaget explicitly cites and discusses Baldwin in that book. I think
    he gets it rather wrong, myself, as the Baldwin Effect often causes
    confusion. Mayr, for example, denies it has any role in evolution, and
    again I think he misunderstand it. I have a slew of web refs for the
    Baldwin Effect if anyone wants them - email me for them tomorrow or after.

    The Baldwin Effect merely describes a situation where changes in behavior
    deform the fitness landscape so that mutations and recombinations that
    approximate or approach the novel behavior will be selected for.

    John Wilkins
    Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
    Sending from home on (ugh) pine

    On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Scott Chase wrote:

    >
    > --
    >
    > On Sun, 20 Feb 2000 12:44:44 John Wilkins wrote:
    > >Just checked Piaget's _Behavior and Evolution_. He got it from Waddington
    > >and cites Goldschmidt as the originator.
    > >
    > >
    > Maybe Piaget was making a retrospective acknowledgement of Baldwin in _Adaptation and Intelligence_ then. Since it's topical here's an online copy of Baldwin's "A New Factor in Evolution":
    >
    > http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/publications/Bookinforev/baldwin.html
    >
    > I assume this is true to the original. I'm hoping to delve deeper into Baldwin's corpus soon, but right now I'm stumbling through Popper's _Conjectures and Refutations_ and _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ (LSD) and I've picked up some more stuff by Piaget, so I'm pretty well booked up (nice pun) for a while. Are there any good comparisons/contrasts between genetic epistemology and evolutionary epistemology which won't go way over the head of a philosophically challenged dud such as myself? I have been planning on immersing myself into world 3 though one of these days.
    > BTW, I've got this classic paper saved which appears on the web:
    >
    > http://www.yorku.ca/dept/psych/classics/Breland/misbehavior.htm
    >
    > It's not exactly topical, but at least Lorenz and Hebb are mentioned. Dawkins discusses Skinner in _Unweaving the Rainbow_ so maybe I can make a stretch here. I'm sure people will find it informative anyway.
    >
    > Scott
    >
    >
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