JJ10DMAN comments on Science as Attire - Less Wrong

48 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 23 August 2007 05:10AM

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Comment author: JJ10DMAN 29 August 2010 07:31:24AM 4 points [-]

This. I regularly refer to cultural trends, business models, and technology as undergoing evolution, without the slightest inkling of doubt or shame. Real Life is about compromises to that most obstinate debater Nature, and if one must deal with the pragmatic issue of conveying ideas in a conversation in a short period of time, "evolution" is perfectly acceptable shorthand for "process by which a system becomes incrementally more efficient via an ongoing process of simultaneous diversification and selection, similar to biological evolution if someone were to replace the concept of random genetic variation with human ideas and natural selection with artificial selection." That simply takes way too long to say.