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Tuesday, December 23, 2008 12:00 AM

Is the Web helping us evolve?

The truth lies somewhere between "Google is making us stupid" and "the Internet will liberate humanity."
By David Brin

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  • Tuesday, December 23, 2008 10:54 AM

    Ask a Silly Question.

    "Is the Web helping us evolve?"

    Evolution is an incorrect and misleading paradigm in this context. I suppose the formulation is based on the common notion that evolution is natures way of making species better and better. That in turn makes the question a paraphrase of "Is the web making us better".

    But that is not what evolution is about. Evolution is value neutral, not purposive; and so 'evolved' cannot be equated to 'improved'.

    regards JakobA

    —JakobA Read JakobA's other letters

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