ReadingNotes

Without Miracles

Without Miracle : Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution by Gary Cziko - ISBN 026253147X - MIT Press - 1995

note that this was finished much earlier but without recall, recall starts a month before the current date to already start with very spaced recalls

Motivation

Reading The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and his closing chapter on memetics, leading to a more general view on the theory of selection.

Pre-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain before having read the book.

Reading

I The Need for Selection

  • 1 Puzzles of Fit
    • (p3)

II The Achievements of Selection

III The Promise of Selection

  • 6 The Origin and Growth of Human Knowledge
    • (p73)
  • 7 The Adaptive Modification of Behavior
    • (p87)
  • 8 Adapted Behavior as the Control of Perception
    • (p101)
  • 9 The Development and Functioning of Thought
    • (p123)
  • 10 Cultural Knowledge as the Evolution of Tradition, Technology, and Science
    • (p151)
  • 11 The Evolution, Acquisition, and Use of Language
    • (p179)
  • 12 Education: The Provision and Transmission of Truth, or the Selectionist Growth of Fallible Knowledge?
    • (p213)

IV The Use of Selection

  • 13 Evolutionary Computing: Selection Within Silicon
    • (p237)
  • 14 The Artificial Selection of Organisms and Molecules
    • (p261)

V The Universality of Selection

  • 15 From Providence Through Instruction to Selection: A Well-Traveled Road
    • (p281)
  • 16 Universal Selection Theory: The Second Darwinian Revolution
    • (p303)

See also

New concepts

  • exapted
    • ~=preadapted
    • Gould & Lewontin (1979)
  • interactors
    • http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/g-cziko/wm/10.html#Heading13
    • organisms or groups of organisms can be considered to be the interactors on the stage of evolution, and it is at the level of interactors that selection takes place.
    • interactors who, in cultural evolution, are human agents who in interaction with their environments determine which memes are to be selected and, consequently, replicated.
    • See Hull (1988a, pp. 28ff.)
    • "interactor-environment interface" seems very close to my Interface notion (cf whiteboard)

Overall remarks and questions

  • this? that?

Synthesis

So in the end, it was about X and was based on Y.

Critics

Point A, B and C are debatable because of e, f and j.

Vocabulary

(:new_vocabulary_start:) obeisance abhorrence oxen to plow monsoon covetousness replete smokestack to garner vicarious foretold winnowing sundry ordeal impinge expletive conundrum calf (:new_vocabulary_end:)

Post-reading model

Draw a schema (using PmGraphViz or another solution) of the situation of the area in the studied domain after having read the book. Link it to the pre-reading model and align the two to help easy comparison.

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Categories

Other read books linking to the WithoutMiracles page :

The Tinkerer's Accomplice
IntelligentBio
TheThingsWeDo
PhilosophicalDarwinism

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