3 ms·
The essay does take advantage over the common "naturalistic fallacy", where people imply something as being "good" from its being "natural". As a simple counter
by andreyf 19y ago
The essay does take advantage over the common "naturalistic fallacy", where people imply something as being "good" from its being "natural". As a simple counterexample, many diseases are "natural" and many antibiotics, not.
However, I think it's only fair that Paul's motivation for some of his essays is, at least in part, PR work for YC, and hence the fibs (that being the harshest word I'd use) are understandable.
- asdflkj 19y agoThis is not a "naturalistic fallacy" (more properly called an appeal to nature), because PG uses "natural" in the very narrow sense of "evolutionarily optimal". PG must have thought his target audience is discerning enough to dereference such things without any hand-holding.
- andreyf 19y agoHm, "appeal to nature" does seem to fit the bill better, as "naturalistic fallacy" means something slightly different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy It seems funny that I trust wikipedia+random guy on the internet over my economics professors.
- icky 19y ago> The essay does take advantage over the common "naturalistic fallacy", where people imply something as being "good" from its being "natural". The essay avoids that fallacy by making the case that humans, having evolved under certain social conditions, might be much better equipped at present to cope with similar conditions. This itself may be true or false, but it is not fallacious reasoning.