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Philosopher Jerry Fodor, foe of the natural selection cult, no longer needs the Witness Protection Program

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J. Fodor
Jerry Fodor, 1935-2017

And we can still read him. From Suzan Mazur at HuffPost, including a 2008 interview:

We are grateful to Jerry Fodor—perhaps the most substantial philosopher of our time, who has now died—for exposing what he called the “empty” Darwinian theory of natural selection and for his courage as well as his superb humor in the face of unrelenting opposition.

“I’m in the Witness Protection Program,” Fodor joked when I called him to request an interview following publication of his provocative article in the London Review of Books (“Why Pigs Don’t Have Wings,” October 2007) about the problems of Darwin’s selectionist theory.

Fodor never claimed to be a biologist. “It’s not my field,” he told me. But he was the son of a bacteriologist and was comfortable in the science discourse because he didn’t see philosophy and science as separate.More.

Enjoy Mazur and Fodor as an escape this weekend from turkeys, wrappings, and botched casseroles!

Note: Mazur is the author of Public Evolution Summit, a handbook to the questions many evolutionary biologists are asking today.

See also: New Yorker on the late Jerry Fodor, a careful thinker who took on the “natural selection” cult

and

Philosopher Jerry Fodor (1935-2017)

Comments
Poor taste? By what standard?Truth Will Set You Free
December 26, 2017
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I'm with Bob.Belfast
December 25, 2017
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News - regardless of whether he invented the theme, I still think it's in poor taste to joke about his death like that.Bob O'H
December 24, 2017
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Bob O'H at 1, he invented the theme himself; we did not stick it to him. One day eventually no one needs the WPP. JSmith, Fodor understood some pretty critical stuff and paid the price. The good news is, we can tell who to listen to (who are the tenure fossils shrieking about?).News
December 24, 2017
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Fodor never claimed to be a biologist. “It’s not my field,” he told me. But he was the son of a bacteriologist...
I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.
....and was comfortable in the science discourse because he didn’t see philosophy and science as separate.
I’m glad that my surgeon was trained In science and not just in philosophy.JSmith
December 24, 2017
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Wow, that title is in pretty poor taste.Bob O'H
December 24, 2017
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