Subject
Re: QUERY: B Boyd on Nabokov and Darwin]
From
Date
Body
B.Boyd: I would reply to the Discovery Institute were it really interested in open debate and facts rather than a priori convictions that (as I have pointed out elsewhere) Nabokov's assumption that mimicry exceeds predators' powers of deception* has been falsified.
LH: (*I suppose you mean "powers of appreciation"?)
JM: Following LH's indication, in B.Boyd (ch4, N's Ada, page 71 on SM 124-5): "when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation."
What strikes me in this debate is the fact that Man was not considered a predator! A dangerous one, under all accounts, whose powers of appreciation are equal to his powers of deception...
[Btw: I only just remembered a coincidence: several thirty years ago I followed the work of another Boyd, I.A.Boyd (!), on muscle spindles and evolutionary links bt. reptiles and lower mammals.]
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
LH: (*I suppose you mean "powers of appreciation"?)
JM: Following LH's indication, in B.Boyd (ch4, N's Ada, page 71 on SM 124-5): "when a protective device was carried to a point of mimetic subtlety, exuberance, and luxury far in excess of a predator's power of appreciation."
What strikes me in this debate is the fact that Man was not considered a predator! A dangerous one, under all accounts, whose powers of appreciation are equal to his powers of deception...
[Btw: I only just remembered a coincidence: several thirty years ago I followed the work of another Boyd, I.A.Boyd (!), on muscle spindles and evolutionary links bt. reptiles and lower mammals.]
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/