Wednesday, November 9, 2011

On the Origins of Tenuous Simile


In the theory with which we have to deal, Absolute Ignorance is the artificer; so that we may enunciate as the fundamental principle of the whole system that, in order to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it. This proposition will be found, on careful examination, to express, in condensed form, the essential purport of the Theory, and to express in a few words all Mr. Darwin's meaning; who, by a strange inversion of reasoning, seems to think Absolute Ignorance fully qualified to take the place of Absolute Wisdom in all the achievements of creative skill.


These words from Robert Beverley MacKenzie in 1868 in response to a public reading of The Origin of Species. How right he was; there's nothing intuitive to the idea that biological complexity bootstrapped itself from a grabbag of chemicals. And yet, that appears to be precisely what happened.

Good logical arguments are like the Chicago Bulls in 1994; it's almost certain they're not going to be beaten. But good evidence is like the Harlem Globetrotters; it/they cannot be beaten - however counter-intuitive it seems, and however much you want the other team to open a can.

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