What Darwin Got Wrong

288 Pages·2010·3.48 MB·English

by  Jerry Fodor

ALSO BY JERRY FODOR
LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited
Hume Variations
The Compositionality Papers
In Critical Condition
Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong
The Elm and the Expert: Mentalese and Its Semantics
Holism: A Shopper's Guide
A Theory of Content and Other Essays
Psychosemantics: The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Mind
The Modularity of Mind: An Essay on Faculty Psychology
Representations: Philosophical Essays on
the Foundations of Cognitive Science
The Psychology of Language
Psychological Explanation
The Structure of Language
ALSO BY MASSIMO PIATTELLI-PALMARINI
Of Minds and Language: A Dialogue with Noam Chomsky
in the Basque Country
Inevitable lllusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds
Language and Learning: The Debate Between
Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky
WHAT DARWIN GOT WRONG

WHAT DARWIN GOT WRONG
Jerry Fodor
Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
New York
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 1001 I
Copyright © 2010 by Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed in Canada by D&M Publishers, Inc.
Originally published in 20IO by Profile Books Ltd, Great Britain
Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fodor, Jerry A.
What Darwin got wrong I Jerry Fodor, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-374-28879-2 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Natural selection. 2. Evolution (Biology)-Philosophy.
I. Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo. II. Title.
QH37S·F6320IO
S76.8'2-dc22
www.fsgbooks.com
7 9 10 8 6 4 2
It is perfectly safe to attribute this development to 'natural selec
tion' so long as we realize that there is no substance to this asser
tion; that it amounts to no more than a belief that there is some
naturalistic explanation for these phenomena.
Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind, 1972
I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this
volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently
leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have
arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and bal
ancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which
could nor possibly have been formed by numerous, successive,
slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements xii
Terms of engagement xiii
I What kind of theory is the theory of natural selection? I
Part one THE BIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
2 Internal constraints: what the new biology tells us 19
3 Whole genomes, networks, modules and other complexities 40
4 Many constraints, many environments 57
5 The return of the laws of form 72
Part two THE CONCEPTUAL SITUATION
6 Many are called but few are chosen: the problem of
'selection-for' 95
7 No exit? Some responses to the problem of 'selection-for' 117
8 Did the dodo lose its ecological niche? Or was it the other
way around? 139
9 Summary and postlude 153
Appendix 165
Notes 181
References 225
Index 249
vii
DETAILED CONTENTS
Acknowledgements Xll
Terms of engagement Xlll
I What kind of theory is the theory of natural selection? I
Introduction I
Natural selection considered as a black box 3
Operant conditioning theory considered as a black box 4
Proprietary constraints (I): iterativity 5
Proprietary constraints (2.): environmentalism 6
Proprietary constraints (3): gradualism 7
Proprietary constraints (4): monotonicity 9
Proprietary constraints (5): locality 10
Proprietary constraints (6): mindlessness II
Thinking inside the boxes 13
The mechanism of learning according to operant
conditioning theory
The mechanism of selection according to evolutionary theory 15
Part one THE BIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
2. Internal constraints: what the new biology tells us 19
Natural selection is real, of course (when properly construed) 2.0
Unidimensionality 2.2.
Beanbag genetics 2.5
Internal constraints and filters: 'evo-devo' 2.7
Some (undue) perplexities about the evo-devo revolution 30
viii