Triumph of Maya: The Rhetoric of Darwinism


To begin to get a sense, then, of the unique fraudulence which is contemporary Darwinian theory, consider the following passage from Steven Pinker:
[v]
 


Stove points to the work of W.D. Hamilton, the original propounder of the theory of inclusive fitness, for evidence of this interpretation:
 


 

 
The theory of inclusive fitness, presented as an explanation of altruism, is less an idea and more a rhetorical strategy:

All along, there is no question as to the motives behind the resort to this scam:

 

 
 
 
[xviii]
 
 
[xxi]

 

[xxii]
 
 

 
 
 

 

 


 

 


[v] Pinker, Steven The Blank Slate (New York: Viking, 2002) 166.

[vi] Pinker, 103, 149, 51, 167.

[viii] Wilson, David Sloan Evolution for Everyone (New York: Delacorte Press, 2007) 125.

[x] Ridley, Matt The Origins of Virtue (New York: Viking, 1996) 264, 124.

[xi] Ridley, 138-141

[xii] Ridley, 120-132.

[xiv] Ruse, Michael Charles Darwin (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008) 240.

[xv] Ruse 2008, 217.

[xvi] Ruse 2009, 145.

[xvii] Wright, Robert, The Moral Animal (New York: Vintage Books, 1994) 10, 104.

[xx] Dawkins, 1-6.

[xxi] Ruse, Michael Darwin and Design (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press, 2003) 265, 325.

[xxii] Stove, 246.

[xxiii] Ruse 2003, 268.

[xxiv] http://meaningoflife.tv/video.php?speaker=dennett

[xxvi] Gilson, Etienne From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009) 6.

[xxvii] Dawkins, 2.

[xxviii] Wright, 190.

[xxxi] Ruse 2003, 278.

[xxxiii] Ruse 2003, 288.

[xxxv] Midgley, 17.

[xxxvi] Gilson, 152.

[xxxvii] Dawkins, xiv.

[xxxviii] Ruse 2003, 335.

[xxxix] Dennett, 63.

[xli] Dennett, 65.

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