(2004-11-12) Frankston Teaching Evolution

Bob Frankston on teaching about Evolution. This is an endemic problem because we teach evolution in biology classes. Biology is too complex to teach hard sciences. So evolution comes across just as another stupid and wrong rhyme like "ontology recapitulates phylogeny"... Evolution is really an emergent property of any Complex System that can regenerate success and quench failure. It's easiest to think of these as digital systems though it's tautological. Scale and perturbation are part of the mix... I argue that evolution doesn't create complex systems. Each step is simple - we just don't recognize the simplicity. For those of us who architect systems we know how important the right decomposition is and there isn't just a single one... Without the notions of opportunity, decompositions and emergent properties we are stuck with arbitrary and seeming inexplicable (thus magical) complexity. Biology, as science, is a messy landscape in which those seeking to confirm there theories found plenty of ambiguity. This makes it difficult to isolate evolutionary processes and provides shelter to those who are seek confirmation of their beliefs rather new understanding.