Editing Neural Darwinism (section)

==Reception==

An early review of the book ''Neural Darwinism'' in ''[[The New York Review of Books]]''{{sfn|Rosenfield|1986}} by [[Israel Rosenfield]] invited a lively response on the part of the neurosciences community.{{sfn|Young|Ayala|Szentagothai|1987}} 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''.{{sfn|Crick|1989}}  Francis Crick based his criticism on the basis that neuronal groups are instructed by the environment rather than undergoing blind variation. In 1988, the neurophysiologist [[William H. Calvin|William Calvin]] had proposed true replication in the brain,{{sfn|Calvin|1988}} whereas Edelman opposed the idea of true replicators in the brain. [[Stephen Smoliar]] published another review in 1989.{{sfn|Smoliar|1989}}

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.{{sfn|Rose|1990}} The ''New York Times'' writer [[George Johnson (writer)|George Johnson]] published "Evolution Between the Ears", a critical review of Gerald Edelman's 1992 book ''Brilliant Air, Brilliant Fire''.{{sfn|Johnson|1992}}  In 2014, [[John Horgan (journalist)|John Horgan]] wrote a to Gerald Edelman in ''[[Scientific American]]'', highlighting both his arrogance, brilliance, and idiosyncratic approach to science.{{sfn|Horgan|2014}}

It has been suggested by [[Chase Herrmann-Pillath]] that [[Friedrich Hayek]] had earlier proposed a similar idea in his book ''The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology'', published in 1952.{{sfn|Herrmann-Pillath|2006}} Other leading proponents of a selectionist proposals include Jean-Pierre Changeux (1973, 1985),{{sfn|Changeux|Courrège|Danchin|1973}}{{sfn|Changeux|1985}} [[Daniel Dennett]], and [[Linda B. Smith]].  Reviews of Edelman's work would continue to be published as his ideas spread.

A recent review by Fernando, Szathmary and Husbands explains why Edelman's neural Darwinism is not Darwinian because it does not contain units of evolution as defined by [[John Maynard Smith]]. It is selectionist in that it satisfies the [[Price equation]], but there is no mechanism in Edelman's theory that explains how information can be transferred between neuronal groups.{{sfn|Fernando|Szathmáry|Husbands|2012}} A recent theory called ''evolutionary neurodynamics'' being developed by [[Eors Szathmary]] and Chrisantha Fernando has proposed several means by which true replication may take place in the brain.{{sfn|Fernando|Karishma|Szathmáry|2008}}

These neuronal models have been extended by Fernando in a later paper.{{sfn|Fernando|2013}} In the most recent model, three plasticity mechanisms i) multiplicative STDP, ii) LTD, and iii) Heterosynaptic competition, are responsible for copying of connectivity patterns from one part of the brain to another. Exactly the same plasticity rules can explain experimental data for how infants do causal learning in the experiments conducted by [[Alison Gopnik]]. It has also been shown that by adding Hebbian learning to neuronal replicators the power of neuronal evolutionary computation may actually be greater than natural selection in organisms.{{sfn|Fernando|Goldstein|Szathmáry |2010}}