chaosmosis comments on The Wonder of Evolution - Less Wrong

34 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 02 November 2007 08:49PM

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Comment author: chaosmosis 03 May 2012 04:00:25AM *  2 points [-]

Very nice comment, giraffe example is especially appreciated.

The beautiful world you are describing could be interpreted as being the product of either, and the science itself would not change.

I think this part of the objection warrants specific attention.

Yes, the belief could be interpreted that way, and there would still be wonder. But we would have lost something else, which is accuracy. If the only thing we used to evaluate arguments was wonder, then both would be equally valid, but using wonder and not accuracy as a tool of argumentative evaluation doesn't make much sense. You're not wrong to point out that other belief systems allow for wonder, and indirectly, this remark leads me to wonder (pun always intended) whether or not it might have been better to use a different word without emotional connotations, because I don't really see past evolutionary processes as something we should develop emotional attachments to. But don't mistake wonder for a justification for logical belief.