Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Just ordered Nagel's book (finally)

This book by Thomas Nagel, titled Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. I will read this when spring officially makes its mark locally... which is set to happen after spring makes its mark calendrically  - sadly.

The reviews of it have been everywhere for quite some time. Love this review from Michael Chorost in the Chronicle in which he reports on the snarky comments of the strangely ideological Jerry Coyne and others before summing up the difficulties Nagel has uncovered c/o Joan Roughgarden, which seem to me spot on:

"I mean, these guys are impervious to contrary evidence and alternative formulations," she says. "What we see in evolution is stasis—conceptual stasis, in my view—where people are ardently defending their formulations from the early 70s."
And here is the ever great H. Allen Orr, in the NYRB on Nagel's book. Can't wait to read it myself.

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