Whereas genetic variation in organisms is not induced by the environmental conditions in which the individual is struggling to survive, scientific innovations are designed by their creators to solve recognized problems; they therefore are correlated with solutions to problems . . . Scientists also commonly seek new hypotheses that will correct error in their previous trials . . . (Thagard, 1988, p.103)
The differences between epistemological and biological selection arise from the fact that theory selection is performed by intentional agents working with a set of criteria, whereas natural selection is the result of different survival rates of the organism bearing adaptive genes. (Thagard, 1988, p.107)
Because the variation, selection, and transmission of scientific ideas differ in such fundamental ways from their biological analogs, Darwinian natural selection provides a poor model for understanding the growth of science. It misleadingly suggests that variation in scientific ideas is blind, that their selection is by local criteria, and that their transmission is genetic. It ignores the pragmatic, problem-solving context of induction. Thus employment of the evolutionary analogy leads away from solutions to important problems about the growth of knowledge, not toward them. Hence, evolutionary epistemology, conceived as the application of the Darwinian model to scientific development should be abandoned. (Thagard, 1988, pp. 110-111)
. . . we propose a developmental process that is like evolutionary process . . . . evolution is to biology what development is to psychology (Thelen & Smith, 1994, p. 34)
While conceptual variation and intellectual selection are coupled, for instance, genetic mutation and ecological selection are decoupled; and this difference has struck many biologists as so supremely important that they reject any argument based on other broader similarities between the two processes. (Toulmin, 1972, p. 338)
. . . when Jean Piaget says that intelligence is "a biological adaptation," he challenges us all--himself included--to explain what sort of thing such an adaptation can be. (Toulmin, 1981, p. 26)
[HOME] [NEXT]The novelties that survive here and now (whether novel organic forms or linguistic usages, social institutions or scientific concepts)--the variants that become established as an outcome of what Campbell calls "editing" (that is, generalized "selection")--are those that make a specific contribution toward meeting demands that actually arise here and now (Campbell, 1974). (Toulmin, 1981, p. 26)