Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Progress: Progress is the forward movement towards a desired goal. It can be measured through technological advancement, social change, or personal development. See also Process, Change, Measurements, Learning, Stages of development._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Stephen Jay Gould on Progress - Dictionary of Arguments
IV 112 Thinking/progress/Gould: progress in science requires new ways of thinking. Examples: See Natural Laws/Lyell, Gradualism/Gould. IV 186 Progress/evolution/Gould: there is no progress in evolution to better individual parts: the eyes of the trilobites, for example, have never been reached in their complexity or sharpness by the later anthropodes, let alone surpassed. - - - III 16 Progress/life/trends: new trends may be explained by a change in the range of variations of entire systems (instead of individual entities within the systems). It is just an inversion of terms, not a mathematical procedure. Gould thesis: evolution: the history of life as a whole is not marked by progress! Not even by a directed evolutionary force. III 34 Progress/Gould: some assume a development towards complexity or differentiation. Gould: even for these earmarked replacement terms, progress cannot be defined as the main impulse of life. We have the need to view evolution as predictable and progress-oriented. Thesis: the human is not the crown of creation. Trend: there are more and more animals in evolution - the time of the human is simply short ((s)GouldVsAnthropic Principle > Anthropic Principle). III 39 It is a mistake to understand evolution as an ascending ladder. Bacteria are actually no less complex than we are. III 86 Trend: progress is not walking a path, but a complex series of transitions or lateral steps. III 92 The trend is not a ladder, but a chain of reinforcements. III 89 Success/evolution: what are real "success stories" in evolution? E.g. rats, bats, antelopes. These three groups dominate the world of mammals, both in number and ecological distribution. Most successful: bony fish: bony fish make up almost 50% of all vertebrate species. There are hundreds of times as many bony fish species as the primates and five times as many as all mammals put together. III 121 Progress/sport/Gould: improved performance: progress in spots can be depicted by an asymptote. What is remarkable, is that women have a much steeper improvement curve than men. Progress/livestock breeding: the progress in livestock breeding is often 13% per year. The breeding of thoroughbred horses is economically more interesting than all other breeding projects! It can therefore be assumed that thoroughbred horses have long since reached their optimum. III 123 Sports/progress: the records in the running disciplines (200m, 10,000m) have improved by the same relative amount regardless of distance: namely from 5.69 to 7.57 metres per minute in a decade (marathon: 9.18). If you extrapolated that, then women should soon run faster than the men. However, extrapolation is a mostly unsuitable means. Sports/women: advantages of the female body are the fat distribution and thus buoyancy. E. g. crossing the English Channel and swimming distance to Catalina Island: here the women already hold the world record today. Many women would beat most (untrained) men in all disciplines anyway. III 167 Progress/evolution/Darwin/Gould: Darwin initially rejected the term evolution because it is linked to progress. The term does not appear in the first edition of the "Origin of Species". III 175 Progress/nature/Gould: struggle: a)"biotic": the biotic struggle describes the struggle between living beings and for food; it can produce progress, as in faster running, better thinking, stronger physical condition, etc. b)"abiotic": abiotic is e. g. the fight of a plant at the edge of the desert. This cannot bring about any progress, because the environment does not change over a long period of time. Progress: the argument of the predominance of biotic competition is not enough, something must be added. If the environment is relatively empty, the inferior variants can continue to exist next to it. III 177 Progress/Darwin/Gould: question: why did Darwin smuggle progress back in through the back door by writing about the supremacy of biotic competition in a constantly overcrowded world? (KropotkinVsDarwin). After the demise of the Permian period, 95% of marine invertebrates had disappeared. Nothing was crowded. Darwin: was only able to pull himself out of the affair by considering the fossils to be artifacts (gaps in the finds). III 179 Progress/Gould: how can one define "higher" if evolution produces a parasite with every alleged progress? >Evolution, >Explanation._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Gould I Stephen Jay Gould The Panda’s Thumb. More Reflections in Natural History, New York 1980 German Edition: Der Daumen des Panda Frankfurt 2009 Gould II Stephen Jay Gould Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes. Further Reflections in Natural History, New York 1983 German Edition: Wie das Zebra zu seinen Streifen kommt Frankfurt 1991 Gould III Stephen Jay Gould Full House. The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin, New York 1996 German Edition: Illusion Fortschritt Frankfurt 2004 Gould IV Stephen Jay Gould The Flamingo’s Smile. Reflections in Natural History, New York 1985 German Edition: Das Lächeln des Flamingos Basel 1989 |
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Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-28