Talk:Mediocrity principle

Criticisms

This section is given far too much prominence. Zazaban 01:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, it seems unsubstantiated as hell. It was probably added by the same person who put 'citation needed' markers all over the place. I am summarily deleting it. 112.110.4.162 (talk) 12:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Boosted?

The introductory paragraph says:

The mediocrity principle is further boosted by:

• Fossil evidence supported by genetics concluding that all humans have a common ancestor about 100,000 years ago and that they share a common ancestor with chimpanzees about six million years ago. Therefore humans are part of the biosphere, not above it or unique to it.
• Humans share about 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees. Chimpanzees have actually undergone more genetic change than humans.
• The answering of Schrödinger's question What is Life? through the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA and the reduction of life to organic chemistry, negating the vitalism of previous centuries.
• Francis Crick's "Astonishing Hypothesis" suggests that consciousness is simply the function of the brain.
• When the Human Genome Project released its findings in 2003, it was discovered that the human genome only has 24,000 genes. As recently as the 1990s, humans were considered so complex as to have about 300,000 genes.
• Evolutionary psychology is discovering the limits to human rationality, biological psychology exposes the material nature of cognition and moral sense with fMRI scans, economic and political studies find regularities in the behaviors of large groups of humans.

These are not supporting evidences at all, since they have nothing specific to do with the mediocrity principal, and apply just as equally to its alternative hypothesis, the Rare_Earth_hypothesis. The following is the only point currently listed that has any credence in distinguishing this theory from any other:

• Edwin Hubble discovered the universe is a lot larger than humans first thought and James Hutton discovered the Earth is a lot older. The Hubble Deep Field is a long exposure of thousands of galaxies, making it one of the best pictorial representations of the principle of mediocrity.

129.139.1.68 14:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks like someone's gone to a lot of trouble to tinker with the opening, but still there's nothing really logical about what's there now - how does the picture of the Earth taken from the outskirts of the solar system add to the argument that the Earth is somehow just an ordinary planet like, presumably, thousands or millions or whatever out there. Now if you had a picture of an Earth-like (assuming of course that Earth-like planets are needed for intelligent life - I'm not even sure that Earth provides a meaningful example of such) planet orbiting some other star or better yet pictures of a hundred or a thousand Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, then you've got something of an argument. Unfortunately, no such empirical information exists - while I wouldn't be surprised to find intelligent life out there somewhere, I don't think we know enough to make even educated guesses.

jmdeur 15:30 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Reasons for adding rewrite template

This article is a mess! I added a complete rewrite template since every section needs to be rewritten. The problems I see are:

• No clear structure.
• No clear definitions. (The article gives a vague impression that something about humanity is common to something else—and that's about it. Definitions seem to range from "Human DNA is mediocre in relation to other animals" to "Earth is mediocre in relation to the universe.")
• Confusing or irrelevant facts. (In one place an appeal is made to evolutionary / biological psychology as support for the non-uniqueness of humanity. Well, without a clear definition(s) of the topic, this is just confusing. And depending on the definition(s) it may be irrelevant. Granted that human rationality is limited [whatever that means], and conscious thought is merely an epiphenomena of material states in the brain [both of which are controversial assertions]—that has nothing to do with the question of whether Earth-like planets are rare in the solar system or universe, whether intelligent life is rare in the solar system or universe, whether human traits are rare among animals, &c.)
• No criticism or counter-factual data presented. (This isn't required, but if there are WP:RS sources with WP:N opinions, they should be included.)
• Too many "See Also" links. (Nihilism? Fatalism?)

As it stands now, the article looks more like an apologetic for a particular point of view than an encyclopedia article about a scientific or philosophic principle. 24.243.3.27 (talk) 03:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)