Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 12:22:21 -0600
From: Lisa Rogers <LROGERS-AT-deq.state.ut.us>
Subject: Re: Engels, dialectics, etc -Reply


Adam, I hadn't realized your post went to m1, or I would have
responded on m1, as I am now.  I'm not sure yet if you sent it to m2
or not, but this summer's talk on this topic was on m2, so that's why
Russell is "missing" the earlier bit of this thread.  If you didn't
send it to m2 already, maybe you should, if you like.  Also, Adam,
did you reply to my pesky questions about why you were looking for
dialectics in Darwin? or have I just missed that post?

If anybody wants to read Origin of Species, please try to get the 2nd
edition.  Adam, I'm guessing you read 6th ed, it is by far the most
commonly available one.  I've seen forewords that claim the last is
the best, "the way that Darwin wanted it remembered", but I've heard
that the first is the best, except I've never found one, so 2nd is
good.  There were significant changes, especially in regard to a
Lamarckian kind of mechanism that Darwin admitted to the 6th edition,
which is all wrong, and was not in the first edition at all.

I'd like to find an article that has already done some work comparing
earlier Origin with later, I'm sure it's been done.  If anyone would
like to look one up, that would be interesting to see how and why
Darwin "changed his mind".  It would be an example of one way that
ideas change within science.

I'm willing to discuss this some more, but, for a clarifying
beginning, I hope someone will state what exactly is meant by a
"dialectic in nature", and why they think it is important to think of
natural phenomena as "dialectic", per se.

Also, note that Engels didn't take his notes for DialNat into biology
at all.  He explicitly states that he's not going there, because
there was not enough known about how biology works to show where
there were examples of "dialectical" properties, or something like
that.  DialNat is all about physics/physical sciences.  So, 'Nature'
did not mean 'living things' to him.

Lisa



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