E. O. Wilson- from 'Consilience', beginning of chapter 6 AFAIK, but my
copy is in much prettier hands right now.
Yes, philosophy, sociology, and non-biologically based studies of the
human condition. It's not that we need to move _away_ from a
human-centric focus, it's that the _focus_ itself was never lensed
properly. We need to move into the cell-level stuff that new imaging and
perceptual studies have opened up for us, to start looking from the
bottom up rather than the top down. Coming onto this present shore was
one thing, but most 'liberal arts' sciences are still dipping their toes
in the waves as far as the mind is concerned. It's bloody time to move in
and explore the land.
The meme itself, if we want it to be found, will not be found through
statistical arrays of cultural differences, any more than any gene has
ever been found through statistical arrays of toenail length. Go inward,
young men....
Wilson also says quite clearly that a large number of recalcitrant
know-nothings has a morbid fear of laboratory studies, and the corpulant
obsequiousness to imagine a fact has arisen from conjecture....
"The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they
have been proved to have their counterparts in the world of fact."
-John Tyndall
We've done the thought- the ships are now quite useless on the shore.
Move on.
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
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