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Dinesh club

Posted: 19 Apr 2022

Taken: 19 Apr 2022

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The Moral Animal •
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Robert Wright •
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Other Minds •
Peter Godfrey Smith •

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Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley: “The practice of that which is ethically best -- what we call goodness or virtue -- involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads fo success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint, in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect but shall help his fellows; its influence is directed, not so much of the survival of the fittest, as to the fitting of as many as possible to survive.”

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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
One of the most famous triumphs of Darwin’s supporters came in 1860, when Thomas Huxley, a.k.a. “Darwin’s bulldog,” took on Bishop Samuel Wilberforce during a debate on ‘The Origin of Species.’ Wilberforce sarcastically asked on which side of his family Huxley was descended from an ape, and Huxley replied that he would rather have an ape as an ancestor than a man “possessed of great means and influence and yet who employs these faculties and that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion.” At least, that’s how Huxley told the story to Darwin -- and Huxley’s account is the one that made it into the history books. But Darwin’s close friend Joseph Hooker was also present, and he remembered things differently. He told Darwin that Huxley : could not throw his voice over so large an assembly, nor command the audience; and he did not allude to Sam’s (Bishop Wilberforce’s) weak points nor put the matter in a form or way that carried the audience.” ~ Page 282

THE MORAL ANIMAL
2 years ago. Edited 2 years ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
In the late nineteenth century, following the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species,’ Thomas Huxley was Charles Darwin’s most important scientific alley and a leading biologist in his own right. By the middle of 1800s the fishers in the North Sea began to wonder whether they might exhaust their stocks of fish, and Huxley was invited to comment. He said there was little reason to worry. He did some simple calculations of the productivity of the sea and the fraction of fish being taken out, and concluded, in a speech in 1993: “I believe that it may be affirmed with confidence that, in relation of our present modes of fishing, a number of the most important sea fisheries, such ad cod fishery, the herring fishery, and the mackerel fishery, are inexhaustible.”

He was spectacularly wrong in his optimism. Within a few decades many of these fisheries, especially cod, were in serious trouble. As a result of his confident assurances, Huxley has become something of a villain. That is not unreasonable, though the villanizers do tend to overlook (and sometimes omit) a part of the infamous quote that I included above: “in relation to our present modes of fishing.” ~ Page 202

OTHER MINDS
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.

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