To, well, anyone that's still listening. I'm a little late on the boat,
but my computer's been down.
At the beginning of this Evolution-discussion, "naive" evolutionists were
brought up. I thought it was an interesting name and, obviously, I took
slight offence since they were directed towards my ilk. Platt has since
taken up the issue, hence, the flurry of e-mails on the subject.
Unfortunately, I just received the flurry. But I had been doing some
thinking on my own. So much productive thinking in fact that "naive"
evolutionists will make an appearence in my not-yet-finished essay which, I
think, I have found the proper title for *trumpets sound*: "Mechanistic
Philosophy and the Yellow Brick Road of Science".
They make an appearence because those who call us "naive" have a legitimate
argument in science proper. I, however, disagree with science proper on
this issue. The issue has to do with mechanistic philosophy. At least the
issue does when in terms with Pirsig. I won't, unfortunately, go into the
arugments here. That's what my essay's for.
But here's a little tid-bit of a history lesson to tide you all over (I can
just hear your collective baited breath). As you may know, the beginning
of the social sciences was a time of scattered ideas. People said, it
seemed, whatever came to mind. As they developed after Darwin's theory was
published, anthropology began to develop a field called the Comparative
Method a.k.a. Evolutionary Anthropology. Applying Darwin's theory to
social theories was the "in" thing to do at the time. And evolving society
theories were not new to begin with. But Evolutionary Anthropology took a
big step after Darwin (and poor Spencer, to a certain extent) and, as far
as I can tell, there were no real collected challengers. Anthros who
didn't agree didn't have a platform that they all did agree with. They
were scattered. That all changed when *trumpets again* Franz Boas came
onto the scene. Pirsig's short bio on Boas is essentially right, but he
left out one thing: Boas made his academic name by trashing the Comparative
Method a.k.a. Evolutionary Anthropology a.k.a. where "naive" evolution
comes from.
When all this came together for me, a buzzer went off in my head. "Of
course Pirsig sounds like a naive evolutionist! He's against Boas who
struck the Comparative right out of Evolutionary theory for good."
That's the short history lesson that will (hopefully) make a surprise
(whose surprise? my surprise) appearence in my essay. The "why" of "Why
can Pirsig get away with it?" will be in the essay. I'd ask for you all to
read it, but it's not finished yet, so I won't be so presumptuous as to ask.
Ah, what the hell!
I hope you all read it and write big long e-mails on how and why I'm wrong!
Happy again,
Matt
p.s. Maybe I should finish that essay, rather that continue to write
e-mails on how I should finish the essay. Hrm. May-be ....
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