User:Jtwsaddress42/Darwin's Program/Reception

Popular & Professional Reception
An early review of the book Neural Darwinism in The New York Review of Books by Israel Rosenfield invited a lively response on the part of the neurosciences community. Edelman's views would be seen as an attack on the dominant paradigm of computational algorithms in cognitive psychology and computational neuroscience - inviting criticism from many corners.

There would be copious complaints about the language difficulty. Some would see Edelman coming across as arrogant, or an interloper into the field of neuroscience, from neighboring molecular biology. There were legitimate arguments raised as to how much experimental and observational data had been gathered in support of the theory at that time. Or, if the theory was even original or not.

But more often, rather than dealing with Edelman's critique of computational approaches, the criticism would be centered around whether Edelman's system was a truly proper Darwinian explanation. Nonetheless, Neural Darwinism, both the book and the concept, received fairly broad critical acclaim.

One of the most famous critiques of Neural Darwinism would be the 1989 critical review by Francis Crick, Neural Edelmanism. Francis Crick based his criticism on the basis that neuronal groups are instructed by the environment rather than undergoing blind variation.

England, and its neuroscience community, would have to rely on bootleg copies of the book until 1990, but once the book arrive on English shores, the British social commentator and neuroscientist Steven Rose was quick to offer both praise and criticism of its ideas, writing style, presumptions and conclusions. The New York Times writer George Johnson published, Evolution Between the Ears, a critical review of Gerald Edelman's 1992 book Brilliant Air, Brilliant Fire. In 2014, John Horgan wrote a particular insightful tribute to Gerald Edelman in Scientific American, highlighting both his arrogance, brilliance, and idiosyncratic approach to science.