RE: Did Dawkins Disprove Dostoevsky?

[mathowl]

I find that these game theoretic models are very limited by their rules. You can pretty much formulate a game to support a hypothesis. I think these type of conclusions can be only be obtained as a data-driven result.

Comments

[alexanderalexis]

That's very true. Dawkins discusses this in his chapter that I cited:

Is there an objective way in which we can judge which is the truly best strategy, in a more general and less arbitrary sense? Readers of earlier chapters will already be prepared to find the answer in the theory of evolutionarily stable strategies.

But I'm consciously trying to limit the length of my posts!

What do you mean by data-driven? You mean based on what actually took place? Something like Pinker's Enlightenment Now ?

[mathowl]

I haven't read that Pinker book.

I mean that these type of models are very restrictive and don't describe the full spectrum of data available. There are more phenonmenon taking place then the model describes. So looking at all the available data seems more optimal to me.