Macario:
I completely agree with your characterization of the potential
utility of evolutionary metaphors and thinking in the social
sciences, and that "scientific" metaphors have long been employed
anyway -- some with utility, some not. We cannot escape metaphors
in our descriptions and explanations, but using some as opposed
to others might open up new and interesting ways of thinking
about the world around us -- particularly at a time when it seems to me
anyway that metaphors drawn from newtonian physics dominate and have
become stale. I also believe that there is still elements of
the "great chain of being" latent in modern, scientific thinking --
a metaphysical bias that is hard to shake.
In any case, I understand that this was meant to be a discussion
of TLTC and not the relative utility of evolutionary thinking in
the social sciences, and do not want to unduly fill others mail
boxes with tangential issues. That is why I speculated that others
might be tiring of the discussion.
Ron
Ronald J. Deibert
Institute of International Relations
University of British Columbia
(604) 822-5480