Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning".
review · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 19528651.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.0904433106 and PMC identifier 2702804.
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Abstract
Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection unifies the world of physics with the world of meaning and purpose by proposing a deeply counterintuitive "inversion of reasoning" (according to a 19th century critic): "to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it" [MacKenzie RB (1868) (Nisbet & Co., London)]. Turing proposed a similar inversion: to be a perfect and beautiful computing machine, it is not requisite to know what arithmetic is. Together, these ideas help to explain how we human intelligences came to be able to discern the reasons for all of the adaptations of life, including our own.
Medical subject headings
- Adaptation, Biological
- Biological Evolution
- Biology
- Selection, Genetic