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Reviewed by:
  • Evolution's First Philosopher: John Dewey and the Continuity of Nature
  • David B. Dillard-Wright
Jerome A. Popp. Evolution's First Philosopher: John Dewey and the Continuity of Nature. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2007 155pp. with bibliography and index.

Pragmatism is what works, not in the shallow sense of expedience or economy, but what works in the deepest sense of making life better and resolving intractable problems. Working in this best sense of pragmatism, Jerome A. Popp draws on the philosophy of one of the founders of pragmatism, John Dewey, in developing a philosophy that uses developments in biology and neuroscience to give readers a pragmatic hermeneutic for the 21st century. Popp argues that the development of human culture should be considered under the Deweyan rubric of "growth," a concept which does not mean mere numeric reproduction, but refers to the increase in creative intelligence that occurs in healthy social interaction (82). "Growth" is that which enables a species to survive, not in terms of simply producing the right numbers, but in terms of generating solutions in each new situation. Popp's book is an informed evolutionary exploration of the direction that humankind (and especially American, first-world humanity) needs to take if it is to avert ecological crisis and develop a more humane common life.

A few lines from the Afterword, imagining a conversation with a bacterium, express the questions that the book pursues from different angles all along:

Will we, by means of our minds, be here a million years from now and be able to say to Thermus aquaticus, "We're still here"? Or will we become part of the fossil record because it turned out that we devised our own destruction? All life forms face uncertainty, but our minds can help us deal with the future, not because we have found an algorithmic solution to the problem of induction but because our minds give us an edge in the biological arms race. The more we understand about how we came to be, the better we can construct physical, biological, and social structures that contribute to our continued existence.

(141)

As much drawing from Dawkins and Dennett as Dewey, this quote, with its "arms race" imagery, reveals a hint of a "red in tooth and claw" bias in Popp's book. Those approaching the book from ecological perspectives may find that its promise of emphasizing the "continuity of [End Page 177] nature" falls short: if Popp suggests that human beings should be wary of their caustic interactions with non-human ecosystems, it is because those systems support human life and not because of their intrinsic value. Though it does not emphasize interspecies cooperation as much as it might (the social remains throughout a human category), Popp's humanism is environmentalist even if it remains anthropocentric.

The scientific exposition that builds towards the book's thesis, expressed at the end of the block quote, above, is based on investigations of the development of the human brain, both in the life-cycle of individuals and in the larger evolutionary picture. Those who haven't taken a science class recently will appreciate Popp's refreshing and clear exposition, and diagrams and reader's guides facilitate ease of use. This comment should not be taken to mean that the biological chapters are shallow or facile, however, since an impressive array of evolutionary and neurobiological topics are treated in a concise yet sophisticated fashion. The first part of the book contains three chapters on evolutionary science: "What is Darwinian Evolution?," "Preparedness Versus Plasticity," and "Brain Development and the Emergence of Mind." Both in the chapter on evolution and in the chapters on brain development, the excessive nature of biological reproduction is stressed. In a phenomenon known as "exuberance," the developing brain of a child produces far more neurons than it will eventually need, which allows for the most-needed synapses to be preserved in a process known as "subtraction" (57, quoting LeDoux). This neurological exuberance is paralleled in genetic inheritance, as the variety of species and the variety of individuals provides the genetic wiggle-room necessary for adapting to each new crisis. Dawkins' concept...

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