133,348 research outputs found
Fodor vs. Darwin: A Methodological Follow-Up
No full textIn a series of recent publications Jerry Fodor has attacked what many believe is the core of Darwinian theory of evolution – the theory of natural selection. Not surprisingly, Fodor’s attack has provoked a strong negative reaction. Fodor’s critics have insisted both that his main argument is unsound and that his central claim that the theory of natural selection “can’t explain the distribution of phenotypic traits in biological populations” is untenable. I can generally agree with the first part of the launched criticism: Fodor’s “putative argument” does rely on controversial premises which make it unsound. However, I don’t think that Fodor’s critics have succeeded in their attempts to refute his central claim. The refutation strategy that most of them have undertaken is to show examples of successful evolutionary explanations by natural selection. In what follows, two of these examples are put into scrutiny. The analysis reveals that: (1) The theory of natural selection should be only partially credited with the explanatory success of evolutionary explanations by natural selection because these explanations rely on additional empirical hypotheses which might be true or false. That means that the selectionist explanations are fallible statements the truth value of which depends crucially on the truth value of the empirical assumptions which have been premised. (2) In both cases alternative non-selectionist explanations can be found that fit the same empirical data and no reason has been given (or could be given) why these alternative explanations should be ignored a priori as inferior. The observations (1) and (2) stand against the claim that theory of natural selection is the only legitimate explanance for the distribution of phenotypic traits. This does not mean, of course, that natural selection does not play any explanatory role or that the theory of natural selection is a false theory (as Fodor is inclined to argue for). This only means that there is indeed a problem of understanding the proper explanatory role of natural selection and that this problem is not only Fodor’s problem. The paper ends with a suggestion of what should be admitted in order to get to a better understanding of the proper role that the theory of natural selection plays in evolutionary explanations
On Fodor on Darwin on Evolution
No full textJerry Fodor argues that Darwin was wrong about "natural selection" because (1) it is only a tautology rather than a scientific law that can support counterfactuals ("If X had happened, Y would have happened") and because (2) only minds can select. Hence Darwin's analogy with "artificial selection" by animal breeders was misleading and evolutionary explanation is nothing but post-hoc historical narrative. I argue that Darwin was right on all counts. Until Darwin's "tautology," it had been believed that either (a) God had created all organisms as they are, or (b) organisms had always been as they are. Darwin revealed instead that (c) organisms have heritable traits that evolved across time through random variation, with survival and reproduction in (changing) environments determining (mindlessly) which variants were successfully transmitted to the next generation. This not only provided the (true) alternative (c), but also the methodology for investigating which traits had been adaptive, how and why; it also led to the discovery of the genetic mechanism of the encoding, variation and evolution of heritable traits. Fodor also draws erroneous conclusions from the analogy between Darwinian evolution and Skinnerian reinforcement learning. Fodor's skepticism about both evolution and learning may be motivated by an overgeneralization of Chomsky's "poverty of the stimulus argument" -- from the origin of Universal Grammar (UG) to the origin of the "concepts" underlying word meaning, which, Fodor thinks, must be "endogenous," rather than evolved or learned
Schutz-Pass for Karl Fodor
No full textFront: Issued to Karl Fodor, born on July 29,1934. Divided into four boxes, photo is in top right. Back: Seven typed lines with handstamps including handwritten signatures above and below as well as an oval Budapest handstamp below. Additional handstamp in bottom right corner
Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:
A photostatic copy of Swedish Schutz-Pass issued to Karl Fodor of Budapest, Hungary, of the type issued by Raoul Wallenberg to the Jews in Budapest. It is signed and stamped by the Royal Swedish legation. Initialed by Wallenberg lower left and notarized with certification stamp verso. The Schutz-Pass was a Swedish legal document providing the protection of the neutral Swedish government to its recipient.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1851/thumbnail.jp
Compensation of Parameters Variations in Induction Motor Drives using a Neural Network
No full textIn this paper, the possibility of using a neural network (NN) to compensate parameter variations in an indirect field oriented (IFO) controller is studied and presented. In particular, a three-layer NN has been designed and trained offline with a steady state mathematical model of an IFO control scheme in detuning operations. Thus, the trained NN has been added to the controller as a black box to compensate for motor parameters variations. The motor controller behaviour with the NN black box has been studied in tuning and detuning conditions. Complete simulation results for a 4.0 kW induction motor driven by a CRPWM inverter with IFO controller are shown and discussed
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
H. E. D. Redford, unidentified actress, and George Fadel, scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil" performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
No full textPhotograph of H. E. D. Redford, unidentified actress, and George Fadel, in a scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil," performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
H. E. D. Redford and unidentified actor, scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil" performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
No full textPhotograph of H. E. D. Redford and an unidentified actor, in a scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil," performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
H. E. D. Redford and unidentified actor, scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil" performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
No full textPhotograph of H. E. D. Redford and an unidentified actor, in a scene from Ladislas Fodor\u27s "The Vigil," performed at Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, March 2-5, 1949
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