:Analogies for Sustainable Development/Species of thought

Quote Bank

Wilson (1990):

"I develop a metaphor (perhaps an analogy) in which adaptive mental representations stand in relation to "reality" as biological species stand in relation to "the ecosystem". Notice that this is a many-to-one relationship: Just as we expect a diversity of interacting species to inhabit a single ecosystem (such as a lake), so also might we expect a bestiary of interacting mental representations in the minds of people."

“As "species of thought", mental representations share a number of properties with biological species, including isolating mechanisms that prevent them from blending with other representations. Species of thought also are amenable to the empirical methods that evolutionists use to study adaptation in biological species.”

“In biological evolution, the primary outcome of natural selection is adaptation to an environment. The primary concern of epistemology is the acquisition of knowledge. Any evolutionary epistemology must therefore draw a fundamental connection between adaptation and knowledge.”

References

Analogies for Sustainable Development