"The trouble with the canons of scientific evidence [...] is that they virtually rule out the description of anything but oft-repeated, oft-observed, stereotypic behavior of a species, and this is just the sort of behavior that reveals no particular intelligence at all — all this behavior can be more or less plausibly explained as the effects of some humdrum combination of "instinct" or tropism and conditioned response. It is the novel bits of behavior, the acts that couldn't plausibly be accounted for in terms of prior conditioning or training or habit, that speak eloquently of intelligence; but if their very novelty and unrepeatability make them anecdotal and hence inadmissible evidence, how can one proceed to develop the cognitive case for the intelligence of one's target species?"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesBiographers from the United StatesCognitive scientists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 250
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Wherever there is a conscious mind, there is a point of view. A conscious mind is an observer, who takes in the infor…"
"Biology is Engineering"
"As Akins observes, it is not the point of our sensory systems that they should detect "basic" or "natural" properties…"
"I have grown accustomed to the disrespect expressed by some of the participants for their colleagues in the other dis…"
"But if we ask where precisely in the brain that point of view is located, the simple assumptions that work so well on…"
"from Chapter 1, "Is Nothing Sacred", p. 21-22:"
"The fundamental core of contemporary Darwinism, the theory of DNA-based reproduction and evolution, is now beyond dis…"
"Experience teaches...that there is no such thing as a thought experiment so clearly presented that no philosopher can…"
"In a Thumbnail Sketch here is [the Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness] so far:There is no single, definitive "st…"
"We live in a world that is subjectively open. And we are designed by evolution to be "informavores," epistemically hu…"