The disclosure of new provinces of facts before unknown can only be brought about by accidental circumstances. . . .
After the repeated survey of a field has afforded opportunity for the interposition of advantageous accidents, has rendered all the traits that suit with the word or the dominant thought more vivid, and has gradually relegated to the background all things that are inappropriate, making their future appearance impossible; then, from the teeming, swelling host of fancies which a free and highflown imagination calls forth, suddenly that particular form arises to the light which harmonizes perfectly with the ruling idea, mood, or design. Then it is that which has resulted slowly as the result of a gradual selection, appears as if it were the outcome of a deliberate act of creation. Thus are to be explained the statements of Newton, Mozart, Richard Wagner, and others, when they say that thoughts, melodies, and harmonies had poured in upon them, and that they had simply retained the right ones. (Campbell, 1974b, p.427)
The approach I adopt here is that techniques--in the narrow sense of the word, namely, the knowledge of how to produce a good or service in a specific way--are analogues of species, and that changes in them have an evolutionary character. The idea or conceptualization of how to produce a commodity may be thought of as the genotype, whereas the actual technique utilized by the firm in producing the commodity may be thought of as the phenotype of the member of a species. The phenotype of every organism is determined in part by its genotype, but environment plays a role as well. Similarly, the idea constrains the forms a technique can take, but adaptability and adjustment to circumstances help determine its exact shape. Invention, the emergence of a new technique, is thus equivalent to speciation, the emergence of a new species. (Mokyr, 1990, p.275)
My basic premise is that technology is epistemological in nature. It is not something that somehow "exists" outside of people's brains. Like science, culture, and art, technology is something we know, and technological change should be regarded properly as a set of changes in our knowledge. In recent years, a new school of evolutionary epistemology has gained considerable influence in which knowledge and culture are regarded as propelled by mechanisms similar to those that cause changes in species.5. How does the theory of evolution apply to systems of knowledge? The fundamental idea is simple. Like mutations, new ideas, it is argued, occur blindly (Campbell, [1960] 1987). Some cultural, scientific, or technological ideas catch on because in some way they suit the needs of society, in much the same way as some mutations are retained by natural selection for perpetuation. In its simplest form, the selection process works because the best adapted phenotypes are also the ones that multiply the fastest. (Mokyr, 1990, p.276)
. . . chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. . . . There is no scientific concept, in any of the sciences, more destructive of anthropocentrism than this one, and no other so arouses an instinctive protest from the intensely teleonomic creatures that we are. (Monod, 1971, pp. 112-3)
Supposing we study the phenomenon of error in itself; it becomes apparent that everyone makes mistakes. This is one of life's realities, and to admit it is already to have taken a great step forward. If we are to tread the narrow path of truth and keep our hold on reality, we have to agree that all of us can err; otherwise, we should all be perfect. So, it is well to cultivate a friendly feeling toward error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has. . . . Whichever way we look, a certain "Mr. Error" is always present! If we seek perfection, we must pay attention to our own defects, for it is only by correcting these that we can improve ourselves. (Montessori, 1967, pp. 246-247)
Childern overgeneralize word meanings, using words they acquire early in place of words they have not yet acquired . . . when a world first appears in a child's lexicon, it refers to a specific object but the child quickly extends the semantic domain of the word, using it to refer to many other things. Eventually the meaning of the word is narrowed down until it coincides with adult usage . . . children most frequently base the semantic extension of a word on the shape of its first referent. (Moskowitz, 1978, p. 92)
The Central Dogma about the asymmetry of DNA and proteins has its parallel in the conclusion that no knowledge can be justified by observations, by sense experience or sense-data. Organisms do not evolve by picking up instruction from the outside world; and human beings do not gain knowledge by picking up and accumulating instructions from the outside world, either. Darwin's theory of natural selection as the motor of evolution finds its complement in Popper's theory that we do not gain knowledge by induction but propose theories to the environment and make the environment falsify most of these theories by our own critical selection for retention of those theories which the environment fails to falsify. Popper's immense contribution to our knowledge of knowledge lies in his extension of Darwinian evolution to knowledge in general. We know, or we are here, because of the relentless elimination of those pieces of knowledge or organisms which are not fit to the environment. Popperian acquisition of knowledge, like Darwinian evolution, is a negative process of elimination. (Munz, 1985, p. 15)
[HOME] [NEXT]We said that knowledge must be tolerated by the environment. Toleration is indeed all that is possible and necessary. Neither organisms nor conscious knowledge are determined by the environment. Both organisms and conscious knowledge are, in fact, underdetermined by the environment. An adapted organism is simply an organism which survives and is not eliminated by the environment. It is not an organism which fits the environment like a hand in a glove. The organism will survive as long as it is compatible with the environment. The same applies to knowledge. Conscious knowledge always says more than the environment warrants. It is therefore underdetermined. In saying more, it can still be considered a 'fit'--or an adaequatio rei et intellectus, to use a medieval, scholastic term--as long as what it asserts is compatible with the environment. (Munz, 1985, p. 214)